SPE-EC 


OF 


WILLIAM  COST  JOHNSON,  OF  MD., 


ON  THE 


SUR.TREASU  H  Y  BILL, 


ENTITLED 


A  BILL  IMPOSING  ADDITIONAL  DUTIES,  AS  DEPOSITARIES, 


IN  CERTAIN  CASES, 

if,'--  ■ 

ON  PUBLIC  OFFICERS, 


DELIVERED  IN 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 


OCTOBER  12,  1837. 


\ 


WASHINGTON: 

PRINTED  AT  THE  NATIONAL  REGISTER  OFFICE, 


m 


The  bill  imposing  additional  duties,  as  depositaries  in 
certain  cases,  on  public  officers,  being  under  considera¬ 
tion — 

After  Mr.  Pope,  of  Kentucky,  who  had  addressed  the 
chair,  had  taken  his  seat,  and  had  yielded,  being  ex¬ 
hausted,  to  Mr.  Wm.  Cost  Johnson,  of  Maryland. 

Mr.  Johnson  rose  and  addressed  the  committee  as 
follows: 

Mr.  Chairman:  I  return  to  the  honorable  member 
from  Kentucky,  [governor  Pope]  my  thanks  for  yielding 
the  floor  to  me  before  he  has  completed  his  remarks. — 
After  having  spoken  for  four  hours,  his  physical  ener¬ 
gies  have  yielded  before  the  rich  abundance  of  his  mind 
is  exhausted  on  this  interesting  [question.  I  feel  (said 
Mr.  J.)  how  perilous  my  situation  is  in  attempting  to 
follow  the  learned  and  distinguished  member  who  has 
just  taken  his  seat.  At  this  late  hour,  too,  when  the 
committee  have  been  so  long  in  session,  I  am  strongly 
apprehensive  that  I  may  not  compensate  them  for  any 
portion  of  their  attention.  I  must  therefore  throw  my¬ 
self  upon  their  magnanimity.  But  before  I  enter  upon 
the  subject  under  discussion,  I  feel  it  a  duty  which  I 
owe  to  myself  and  to  others,-  to  give  a  passing  notice  to 
an  observation  which  fell  from  the  honorable  member 
who  last  addressed  the  committee. 

The  honorable  member  remarked,  in  the  course  of 
his  observations,  in  substance,  that  the  friends  of  the 
administration,  or  some  of  them,  had  said  that  the  op¬ 
position  had  a  few  years  ago  made  charges  against  the 
post-office  department,  and,  among  others,  his  friend, 
the  late  postmaster  general;  and  that  the  administration 
sacrificed  some  of  the  members  of  that  department  (at 
least  the  chief  clerk)  to  the  avenging  deity  of  the  relent¬ 
less  opposition.  I  do  not  for  one  moment  suppose  (said 
Mr.  J.)  that  the  honorable  gentleman  purposed  any  per¬ 
sonal  application  of  his  remarks  to  any  particular  member 
of  the  opposition,  but  spoke  of  the  opposition  as  a  party. 
But  having  been  a  member  of  the  twenty-third  congress, 
when  the  administration  of  the  post-office  department 
wasjnade  a  subject  of  special  examination,  and  the  report 
upon  that  examination  was  submitted  to  this  house,  I 
felt  it  my  duty  to  take  an  humble  part  in  a  debate  in 
this  hall  in  relation  to  the  abuses  committed  in  that  de¬ 
partment.  And  my  name  having  been  thrown  before 
the  public  in  connection  with  that  discussion,  and  with 
a  collision  with  the  late  postmaster  general  and  his  .son, 
I  feel  warranted  in  now  alluding  to  it,  from  what  has 
been  said,  and  in  giving  an  explanation  which  circum¬ 
stances  at  the  time  rendered  it  impossible  for  me  to  do. 

When  a  bill  was  under  discussion  in  this  house,  giv¬ 
ing,  as  I  thought,  increased  patronage  to  that  depart¬ 
ment,  I  took  occasion  to  oppose  its  passage,  and  to  ani¬ 
madvert  upon  the  corruptions  which  were  proved  to 


exist  in  it.  A  spirit  of  intimidation  then  still  lingered  in 
this  hall,  and  clearly  manifested  itself,  I  thought,  on  the 
night  of  that  discussion;  for,  during  that  session,  a  mem¬ 
ber  had  been  waylaid  on  the  street  and  attacked  for 
words  spoken  in  debate;  and  but  shortly  before,  other 
members  had  been  beset  and  assaulted.  I  saw,  or 
thought  I  saw,  that  there  were  members  w  illing  to  place 
themselves  between  the  officers  of  government  and  the 
members  of  this  house  who  wished  to  scrutinize  their 
official  conduct.  I  was  soon  left  alone  on  one  side  in 
that  exciting  discussion,  and,  fancying  I  saw  its  result 
in  advance,  took  the  distinct  ground,  when  daggers 
were  spoken  but  none  used,  that  I  was  willing  and 
ready  to  hold  myself  responsible  to  any  member  of  this 
house,  or  to  any  officer  of  government,  who  might  ima¬ 
gine  himself  aggrieved  by  my  strictures.  That  was  the 
position  I  assumed — perhaps  rashly — but  still  it  was  the 
position.  The  next  morning,  in  this  capitoi,  and  be¬ 
fore  I  entered  this  hall,  I  received  a  laconic  note  from 
the  postmaster  general,  by  a  gentleman  whom  I  had 
never  seen  before,  but  whose  bearing  convinced  me 
that  he  was  a  gentleman.  There  was  no  threat  writ¬ 
ten  in  it,  but,  from  its  peculiar  brevity,  I  regarded  it  as 
a  threat;  so  did  two  honorable  gentlemen  of  this  house 
to  whom  I  submitted  it.  I  felt  it  to  be  my  duty  to  give 
it  a  very  short  answer.  Soon  affer  I  received  a  chal¬ 
lenge  from  the  son  of  the  postmaster  general' — a  gentle¬ 
man  whom  I  have  never  seen  in  my  life.  I  accepted 
it.  By  the  advice,  I  apprehend,  of  others,  it  was  with¬ 
drawn.  Humor  reached  my  ear  that  I  was  to  receive 
some  two  or  three  more,  and  was  to  be  caned  by  I 
know  not  how  many.  Under  such  circumstances,  I 
would  neither  explain  nor  authorize  any  friend  to  ex¬ 
plain  in  my  name,  as  an  honorable  friend  in  this  hall 
will  well  remember. 

But.  now  that  the  late  postmaster  general  is  no  more, 
and  the  restraining  circumstances  of  the  affair  have 
passed  away,  I  embrace  the  opportunity  which  the  re¬ 
marks  of  the  honorable  member  have  afforded  me  to, 
say,  in  my  place,  that  I  never  designed  to  charge  the 
post-master  general  with  peculation,  though  I  was  un¬ 
willing  to  except  him  from  the  charge  (of  which  I  had 
proof  enough  to  convince  my  judgment)  that  it  did  ex¬ 
ist  at  that  time  in  the  department.  I  deem  it  due  to  my¬ 
self,  due  to  those  whom  he  has  left  behind  him,  his  re¬ 
lations  and  friends — and  the  honorable  member  as  one 
of  those  friends — to  say,  that  I  had  no  proof  that  he  was 
corrupt,  nor  do  I  believe  that  he  was  a  corrupt  man  in 
the  moral  or  legal  sense  of  the  term.  The  most  that  1 
meant  to  say  was,  that  when  corruption  was  proved  to 
exist  in  a  department,  the  censure  should  fall  with  the 
heaviest  force  upon  the  head  of  that  department,  if  lie 
did  not  suspend  the  guilty  subordinate. 

But  I  dismiss  this  subject,  now  and  finally,  and 


4 


will  attempt  to  approach 
bate. 


that  immediate’'/  under  de- 


Mr.  Chairman,  (said  Mr.  T.,)  when  sir  Walter  Scott 
was  asked  why  it  was  that  he  had  not  written  the  life 
of  the  emperor  Napoleon  in  one  instead  of  three  vo¬ 
lumes,  he  answered,  because  he  had  not  time!  And 
if  I  should  trespass  upon  the  kind  indulgence  of  the 
committee  a  little  longer  than  it  may  think  judicious,  I 
beg  the  committee  to  receive  in  advance,  as  my  apolo¬ 
gy,  that  I  have  not  had  time  to  investigate,  in  all  its 
bearings,  the  important  subject  before  us,  and  to 
arrange  my  reflections  in  perspicuous  brevity,  which  is 
the  best,  proof  I  know  of  a  familiar  knowledge  of  a  sub¬ 
ject. 

Day  and  night  have  we  been  occupied  in  this  hall, 
for  weeks  past,  without  hardly  taking  respite  for  sleep, 
in  investigating  the  important  bills  which  have  been 
crowded  upon  our  attention;  with  not  even  time  to  eat 
■with  comfort,  and  with  scarcely  a  spare  hour  to  read 
the  budgets  daily  placed  on  our  desks,  or  to  spend  in 
examining  books  of  knowledge,  or  be  occupied  in  quiet 
reflection. 

The  experienced  debaters,  and  the  learned  members 
of  this  house,  may  easily  surmount  such  obstacles;  but 
the  humble  member  who  claims  your  indulgence  feels 
them  with  the  strongest  and  almost  overpowering  force. 
Notwithstanding  such  embarrassing  considerations,  I 
am  unwilling  to  give  a  silent  vote  on  the  bill  before 
the  committee,  but  will  assign,  as  briefly  as  I  can,  the 
reasons  why  I  shall  give  a  negative  voice. 

We  have  been  assembled,  Mr.  Chairman,  in  extra¬ 
ordinary  session,  and  have  already  acted  on  some  most 
extraordinary  bills.  But  the  most  extraordinary  ever 
presented  to  the  consideration  of  this  house,  with  an 
earnest  and  specious  hope  of  being  received  with  favor, 
is  the  bill  now  under  debate.  A  bill  of  no  less  a  nature, 
in  my  judgment,  than  one  calculated,  if  passed,  to  obli¬ 
terate  some  of  the  brightest  features  in  our  constitution; 
to  annul  in  its  operation  almost  all  the  statutes  which  so 
carefully  guard  the  mode  of  receiving  and  disbursing 
the  public  revenues:  in  one  word,  a  bill  to  take  from  the 
representatives  of  the  people  all  supervision  and  control 
of  the  public  moneys,  and  to  place  in  the  executive 
hand,  which  now  has  control  over  the  army  and  the 
navv,  the'appointment  of  an  almost,  illimitable  number  of 
public  officers,  and  has  command  of  the  militia  when 
m  the  actual  service  of  the  United  States — to  place  in 
the  same  hand,  to  receive  and  to  pay  out,  without  scarce¬ 
ly  a  check  or  restraint,  all  the  public  money  of  the  na¬ 
tion. 

The  request  from  the  executive  to  be  possessed  of 
such  delicate  and  enormous  power  greatly  surprised 
me;  to  find  the  representatives  of  sovereign  states  tame¬ 
ly  acquiescing,  completely  astonished  me;  to  find  it  ad¬ 
vocated  on  this  floor  by  some  of  the  representatives  of 
the  people,  who,  under  the  constitution,  are  the  purse- 
creating  and  the  purse-holding  power,  has  awakened 
into  alarm  every  hidden  apprehension  of  my  mind. 

What  proofs  of  superior  knowledge  and  superior  use¬ 
fulness  has  the  executive  given,  to  warrant  a  surrender 
of  power  to  its  discretion?  Has  it  shown,  from  the  pru¬ 
dent  exercise  of  powers  delegated  to  it  by  the  constitu¬ 
tion  and  the  laws,  that  to  promote  the  interest  of  the  na¬ 
tion  its  powers  should  be  amplified  and  new  authorities 
delegated?  That,  to  promote  the  interest  of'the  people, 
you  must  abandon  your  trust  and  your  duty,  and  give 
almost  unlimited  discretion  to  the  executive  will?  That 
the  executive  will  better  administer  your  duties  than  the 
conjoint  wisdom  of  the  representatives  of  the  people? — 
Or  does  the  president  even  place  his  request  upon  the 
pretext  that,  by  your  surrendering  into  his  hands  all 
control  over  the  money  of  the  people,  it  will  give  them  re¬ 
lief  in  their  present  distress,  and  equalize  the  exchanges 
and  currency  of  the  country?.  Even  this  plausible  "ar¬ 
gument  is  not  offered,  but  is  distinctly  repudiated  in  the 
executive  message.  No  argument  of  this  sort  is  offer¬ 
ed;  and  yet  you  are  asked  to  make  the  surrender,  sim¬ 
ply  to  gratify  the  executive  pleasure.  But,  Mr.  Chair¬ 
man,  I  would  not  care  ho  w  strong  the  reasons  might  be 


that  could  be  assigned;  if  they  were  ten  times  as 
strong  as  any  I  could  imagine,  I  never  can  be  guilty  of 
violating,  by  voting  for  such  a  measure,  the  whole  ge¬ 
nius  and  spirit  of  the  constitution — the  essence  of  every 
republican  constitution  in  every,  representative  govern¬ 
ment.  So  far  from  the  executive  exhibiting  superior 
sagacity  and  prudence  in  regulating  the  financial  ope¬ 
rations  of  the  government,  it  has  shown  itself  most  cul¬ 
pably  inefficient  to-  discharge  the  duties  required  by  the 
existing  laws,  and  those  which  it  has  assumed,  in  vio¬ 
lation  of  both  law  and  usage.  I  have  not  even  a  sha¬ 
dow  of  doubt  in  my  mind,  that  all  the  embarrassments 
in  our  country,  in  the  currency,  and  in  business  of  every 
kind,  are  in  a  chief  degree  chargeable  to  the  executive 
of  the  last  four  years. 

To  justify  this  allegation,  I  am  constrained  to  allude 
briefly  to  the  past,  but  shall  take  only  a  rapid  glance  at 
circumstances  that  have  transpired,  as  that  ground  has 
been  most  ably  occupied  by  members  who  have  p rece¬ 
ded  me  in  this  debate.  When,  Mr.  Chairman,  did  any 
country  present  as  great  a  degree  of  prosperity  as  this 
nation  "did  at  the  time  that  genera!  Jackson  commenced 
his  unrelenting  hostility  to  the  late  Bank  of  the  United 
States?  What  country  on  earth  possessed  a  better  cur¬ 
rency  than  this  did  at  that  time?  What  country  afford¬ 
ed  such  a  reduced  rate  of  exchanges?  ^  Where  was  la¬ 
bor  better  rewarded?  Where  was  industry  better  re¬ 
compensed?  Search  the  inhabitable  globe  for  a  paral¬ 
lel,  and  you  will  search  in  vian.  Where  was  an  insti¬ 
tution  better  organized  and  conducted,  and  its  paper 
more  readily  received  in  every  part  of  the  United  States, 
if  not  in  every  part  of  the  world,  by  people  of  every  pur¬ 
suit,  from  the  centre  to  the  remotest  borders  of  the 
union,  than  the  paper  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States? 
It  had  realized  more  than  had  been  predicted  by  its 
most  ardent  advocates  in  181 G.  It  had  been  chiefly  in¬ 
strumental  in  effecting  and  maintaining,  for  nearly 
twenty  years,  what  I  regard  to  be  the  great  desideratum, 
in  a  country  where  agriculture,  planting,  manufactures, 
and  commerce  lean  upon  and  support  each  other — a 
convertible  paper  currency — bank  paper  converted  at 
the  will  of  the  holder  into  gold  and  silver.  Such  was 
the  state  of  the  currency  four  years  ago.  Bank  paper 
was  not  only  convertible  into  silver  at  the  counter  of  the 
bank  that  issued  it,  but  was  convertible  everywhere  in 
the  interior  at  tiie  counters  of  retail  merchants,  who 
were  always  glad  to  exchange  their  silver  for  bank 
notes,  which  better  suited  their  purposes  for  transmis¬ 
sion.  Peace  and  plenty  gladdened  the  whole  land; 
content  and  cheerfulness  were  found  in  the  most  hum¬ 
ble  cottage  as  well  as  in  the  more  costly  ediflee;  a  pros¬ 
pect  of  universal  prosperity  was  then  presented,  on 
which  the  mind  loved  to  dwell.  I  will  not  enlarge 
upon  it,  but  content  myself  with  a  simple  narration. 

General  Jackson,  in  the  plenitude  ot  his  power  and 
unparalleled  popularity,  had  forced,  by  his  system  of 
proscription,  most  of  the  officers  of  the  government  to 
become  political  partisans.  To  be  an  active  partisan, 
to  gain  preferment,  was  a  sine  qua  non  with  him.  The 
political  armor  was  put  on.  and  each  saw  written  on  it, 
“this  is  the  road  to  Byzantium.”  The  president  of  a 
northern  branch  of  the  United  States  bank  had  dis¬ 
pleased  some  active  partisan,  and  the  mother  bank  re¬ 
fused  to  dismiss  the  honest  and  independent  head  of  the 
branch;  that  partisan  infused  the  venom  of  his  feelings 
into  the  bosom  of  general  Jackson.  Threat  after  threat 
was  made,  in  the  president’s  messages,  against  the  U. 
States  bank.  A  better  currency  was  promised  the  peo¬ 
ple,  if  they  would  unite  with  the  executive  in  destroying 
that  institution.  That  promise  had  a  charm  in  it,  as  all 
persons  are  anxious  to  better  their  condition;  and  all 
believe,  however  prosperous,  that  their  condition  can 
be  improved.  But  still  an  honest  and  upright  congress 
refused  to  lend  itself  to  the  malignant  purposes  of  tire 
executive,  or  to  gratify  his  splenetic  will.  Congress  was 
in  favor  of  renewing  the  charter  of  the  bank.  The 
executive  veto  nullified  the  will  of  the  representatives. of 
the  states  and  the  people.  Congress  refused  to  gratify 
the  will  of  the  executive  in  ordering  the  government 


> 


•doposites  to  be  removed  from  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  where  the  law  had  placed  them;  but  he,  with 
ruthless  hand,  seized  upon  the  public  treasure,  as  Caesar 
had  done  before  him,  and  parcelled  out.  the  money  of 
the  people  among  a  host  of  sta‘c  institutions,  which  he 
now  testifies  are  the  most  unprincipled  and  profligate 
in  the  annals  of  history. 

Those  institutions  were  urged  by  the  secretary  of  the 
treasury  to  discount  must  liberally  upon  the  deposites.of 
the  government;  and  as  slaves  always  most  readily 
obey  the  first  orders  of  a  new  master,  they  not  only  dis¬ 
counted  paper  offered  to  them,  but  in  many  cases  in¬ 
vited  customers.  Congress  altered  the  standard  of  gold, 
and  reduced  its  value.  Europeans  sent  their  gold  here 
to  be  coined,  and  then  ordered  it  home  again.  The 
Neapolitan  and  French  indemnities  were  adjusted,  and 
imported  in  gold.  This  was  hailed  as  the  millennium 
of  the  golden  age,  and  general  Jackson  was  told  by  his 
flatterers,  and  believed  it,  that  he  had  at  last  discover¬ 
ed  the  philosopher’s  stone.  Jaundiced-eyed,  and  near¬ 
sighted  politicians  whose  minds  cannot  realize  causes 
and  effects,  or  discriminate  fictitious  from  true  and 
abiding  causes,  thought  that  they  had  really  worked  a 
specie  miracle;  and  the  general  himself  read  his  valedic¬ 
tory-,  “still  harping”  on  the  monster  bank,  and  congra¬ 
tulating  himself  and  the  country  on  the  experiment 
which  he  had  tried  in  his  humble  efforts  to  improve,  as 
he  said  he  had,  the  currency  of  our  country.  But  I  am 
fast  in  my  chronology;  there  is  one  other"  remarkable 
event  which  I  wish  to  allude  to.  Before  general  Jack- 
son  retired  from  office,  a  distinguished  senator,  who 
had  aided  much  in  building  up  the  golden  image  which 
he  washed  all  to  fall  down  and  worship,  made  a  politi¬ 
cal  prediction,  that  if  the  people  of  the  west  would  co¬ 
operate  with  him  in  destroying  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  they  would  see,  in  violation  of  all  the  laws  which 
govern  fluids  or  solids,  gold  flow  up  the  Mississippi. 
They  believed,  and  looked  with  anxious  hope,  but  look¬ 
ed  in  vain.  He  conceived  the  expedient  whilst  congress 
was  in  session,  but  revealed  it  perhaps  to  few7 — lingered 
until  congress  had  adjourned,  and  then,  “solitary  and 
alone,”  he  thought  he  would  set  the  golden  stream  in 
motion.  Congress  ordered  the  secretary  of  the  treasury 
to  receive  the  notes  of  specie-paying  banks,  and  gold  or 
silver,  in  payment  of  public  dues.  The  alchymical  ope¬ 
ration  was  to  be  effected  by  a  disregard  of  the  law,  and 
the  secretary  of  the  treasury  was  ordered  to  issue  his 
famous  proclamation,  demanding  nothing  but  gold  or 
silver  for  public  lands.  The  prediction  was  realized: 
gold  and  silver  flowed  up  the  valley  and  over  the  moun¬ 
tains,  but  flowed  in  steamboats  and  in  stages — flowed 
to  the  land  offices  and  to  the  banks’  of  deposite,  but 
never  into  the  pockets  of  the  working  people  of  the 
west 

-  This  last  act  broke  the  glittering  dream,  and  the  veil 
of  Mokanna  fell  to  the  ground.  Convertible  paper  and 
gold  were  no  longer  synonymous;  government,  which 
should  have  been  the  last,  was  the  first  to  make  the 
distinction.  Gold  and  silver  were  at  once  more  valuable 
— for  the  article  most  in  demand  in  this  country  is  land; 
and  the  government  is  the  largest  (because  it  is  the 
greatest  proprietor)  and  cheapest  seller,  and  can  con¬ 
trol  the  market  value.  Thousands  daily  purchase  pub¬ 
lic  land,  and  of  course  thousands  were  forced  to  pro¬ 
cure  specie.  It  soon  became  an  article  of  merchandise, 
to  be  bought  in  the  market,  rather  than  a  medium  of 
exchange.  The  hanks  found  their  paper  returned 
upon  them,  and  their  specie  almost  exhausted,  and 
wisely  suspended  specie  payments;  and  the  deposite 
banks  were  the  very  first  to  set  the  example.  Confi¬ 
dence  became  impaired;  the  banks  had  been  pressed 
by  those  w7ho  held  their  notes,  and  they,  in  turn,  called 
on  their  debtors,  and  the  debtors  of  the  banks  called  on 
all  who  owed  them;  thus  the  pressure  pressed  the 
whole  round  of  the  circle  of  trade  and  business.  Panic, 
dismay,  confusion,  and  bankruptcy,  followed  in  quick 
and  fatal  succession.  The.  government  could  not  es¬ 
cape,  the  consequences  of  its  measures,  and  suspend 
specie  payments. 


The  last  congress,  foreseeing  the  evil  consequences 
of  the  specie  circular  of  the  treasury  department,  pass¬ 
ed  a  bill  rescinding  that  order.  General  3  ackson  treated 
it  with  contempt,  placed  ^t  in  his  pocket,  and  retired  to 
the  Hermitage,  denouncing  the  insolence  of  congress 
in  sending  a  bill  to  him  which  questioned  the  wisdom 
of  any  measure  which  he  had  ordered.  Mr.  Van 
Buren,  who  succeeded  to  the  presidency,  was  urged 
most  earnestly  to  rescind  that  circular,  but  he  re  faced. 
When  he  saw,  as  he  ought  to  have  seen,  its  evil  ten¬ 
dency,  he  should  have  yielded  to  the  counsel  of  honest 
and  practical  men.  I  will  here  say  that,  whilst  I  be¬ 
lieve  that  the  evils  of  that  measure  might  have  been 
in  some  degree  softened  if  Mr.  Von  Buren  had  rescind¬ 
ed  the  order  after  the  fourth  of  March,  I  do  not  think 
it  would  have  prevented  a  suspension  of  specie  pay¬ 
ments:  it  would  have  changed  the  direction  of  that  sus¬ 


pension:  much  of  the  silver  would  have  been  drawn 
from  the  west  to  the  Atlantic  and  to  the  southern  cities, 
and  would  have,  in  some  degree,  relieved  them;  but 
that  would  have  forced  a  suspension  of  specie  pay¬ 
ments  by  the  western  and  southwestern  banks,  which 
would  have  been  quickly  followed  by  the  banks  of  the 
commercial  and  large  cities.  When  silver  is  at  a  pre¬ 
mium,  it  is  impossible,  in  the  nature,  of  things,  for  the 
paper  of  any  bank  to  remain  long  in  circulation,  cr 
for  any  bank  to  throw  out  its  paper  to  any  useful  ex¬ 
tent  to  the  people,  and  redeem  it  with  the  precious  me¬ 


tals. 

From  this  train  of  measures  and.  circumstances  I 
trace  the  causes  of  the  suspension  of  specie  payments 
by  all  the  banks,  the  great  confusion  and  embarrass¬ 
ment  in  business  of  every  kind,  the  distress  and  bank¬ 
ruptcies  which  occurred,  and  the  confusion  which  has 
overwhelmed  both  the  people  and  the  government. 
From  such  measures  you  can  trace  consequences, 
with  the  same  unerring  accuracy  as  the  human  eye 
can  mark  the  path  of  the  desolating  whirlwind. 

Amid  this  disastrous  crisis,  the  president  issued  his 
proclamation  convening  congress,  which  he  had  posi¬ 
tively  refused  to  do  a  few  weeks  before.  We  assem¬ 
bled,  some  of  us  yviih  hope,  some  with  apprehension, 
though  all  equally  anxious  to  know  what  measures 
would  be  recommended,  and  what  position  the  execu¬ 
tive  would  assume.  Some  thought  that  the  president 
would  recommend  the  sub-treasury  system;  others,  a 
retrial  of  the  state  banks;  whilst  others  hoped — at  least 
I  did — that  he  would  threw  himself  upon  the  advice  of 
congress.  This  was  really  my  belief,  as  well  as  my 
hope.  His  appointment  of  Mr.  Poinsett  at  the  head  of 
the  war  department  had  inspired  me  with  some  hope 
of  better  things.  No  man,  save  one,  who  had  been 
born  either  south  or  west  of  Pennsylvania,  he'd  a  place 
in  the  cabinet.  And  the  appointment  of  a  second,  and 
one  so  highly  worthy  and  eminently  qualified,  was.  I 
thought,  the  harbinger  of  some  salutary  changes.  So 
first-rate  men  are  in  office,  I  care  not  from  what  quar¬ 
ter  they  are  taken,  or  where  may  be  their  birth-place. 
But  I  do  maintain  that  every  prominent  place  should 
lie  filled  by  high-minded  and  efficient  gentlemen,  who 
understand  .their  duties,  and  are  prompt  to  discharge 
them.  I  came  here  with  no  pledged  hostility  to  his  ad¬ 
ministration,  and,  personally,  I  had  a  very  high  regard 
for  the  president.  My  situation  here  is  peculiar.  I 
have  been  elected  by  the  aid  of  both  parties.  If  I  were 
to  consult  the  feelings  of  a  majority  of  the  persons,  who 
voted  for  me,  rather  than  the  opinions  of.  a  majority  of 
the  voters  of  the  district  I  would  pause  in  my  course. 
But  when  instructed  with  a  public  duty,  I  do  not  feel 
at  liberty  to  be  governed  bv  feelings  of  personal  predi- 
.lection  or  antipathy.  I  feel  bound  to  take  a  more  ex¬ 
pansive  view  of  the  whole  district  and  the  nation. 

When  we  assembled  here,  speculation  was  at  once 
hushed  by  the  receipt  of  the  president’s  message;  and 
I  must  confess  I  was  greatly  disappointed.  I  had  read 
his  famous  letter  to  Mr.  Sherrod  Williams,  in  which. he 
considered  the  state  banks  as  government  depositories, 
and  said  how  admirably  the  system  worked — where  he 
denounced  the  United  States  bank,  and  promised  to 


6 


tread  in  the  footsteps  of  his  illustrious  predecessor.  I 
thought  ail  this  was  the  mere  electioneering  language 
of  the  day,  and  that,  when  once  in  office,  he  would 
make  himself  the  president  of  the  people,  and  not  of  a 
party.  All  my  expectations  were  disappointed;  for  al- 
mbst  the  first  thing*  he  informed  the  representatives  of 
the  people  whom  he  had  called  together — -who  assem¬ 
bled  here  fresh  and  warm  from  the  midst  of  the  people 
— was,  that  if  they  should  dare  to  pass  a  bill  to  esta¬ 
blish  a  United  States  bank,  he  would  be  a  lion  in  their 
path;  that  he  was  armed  with  a  veto  power,  and  would 
assuredly  use  it.  Such  language  is  unprecedented  in 
the  history  of  this  or  any  other  country.  The  president, 
in  his  inaugural  address,  informed  the  people  that  if  a 
particular  measure  should  be  passed  by  congress,  he 
would  use  the  veto.  I  thought  that  unnecessary  and 
uncalled  for,  but  supposed  it  was  designed  for  southern 
effect.  A  veto  in  that  case  would  be  unnecessary; 
nor  did  Mr.  Van  Buren,  or  any  one  else,  suppose  that, 
he  would  ever  be  called  on  to  redeem  his  pledge;  for, 
Mr.  Chairman,  whenever  the  congress  of  the  United 
States  shall  so  far  forget  their  compact  with  Maryland 
as  to  violate  private  property  in  the  District  of  Colum¬ 
bia,  your  jurisdiction  will  end,  and  that  of  Maryland 
will  begin,  over  all  that  part  of  the  ten  miles  square 
north  of  the  southern  bank  of  the  Potomac  river.  I 
may  go  farther:  that  moment  this  house  shall  contain 
a  majority  of  members  who  will  be  so  reckless  as  to 
vote  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  ol  Co¬ 
lumbia,  the  annunciation  of  that  majority  by  the  chair 
will  be  the  sounding  of  the  death-knell  of  the  union. 

Before  Mr.  Van  Buren  is  six  months  in  office,  be¬ 
fore  a  single  bill  or  resolution  has  been  sent  to  him  for 
his  signature,  he  has> voluntarily,  gratuitously,  stepped 
out  of  the  line  of  his  duty,  to  inform  congress  that 
upon  at  least  two  measures  he  will  use  his  veto.  I 
have  an  hostility  to  the  veto  power,  and  can  never  be 
reconciled  to  its  use.  The  framers  of  our  constitution 
placed  it  in  the  hands  of  the  executive,  under  the  falla¬ 
cious  belief  that  it  was  the  weakest  of  the  co-ordinate 
branches  of  government.  Sir,  the  framers  of  the  con¬ 
stitution  and  the  authors  of  the  federalist  were  mista¬ 
ken.  The  executive  is  more  powerful  than  all  the, 
other  branches  put  together.  All  power  is  fast  consoli¬ 
dating^  in  the  executive  hands;  and  the  executive  his¬ 
tory  of  the  last  four  years  is  sufficient  to  justify  the  re¬ 
mark,  without  any  further  proof.  They  thought  it 
harmless,  because  they  found  it  obsolete  in  England, 
though  existing  in  the  English  constitution. 

The  government  of  the  United  States  is  the  last  in 
the  world  which  should  tolerate  the  veto  power.  There 
may  be  some  plausibility  for  it  in  the  state  constitu¬ 
tions,  which  secure  to  the  people  the  right  to  elect  both 
branches  of  the  legislature;  for  there  both  branches 
may  be  moved,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  by  the  same 
commotion  or  popular  impulse.  But  even  in  the  con¬ 
stitution  of  my  own  state,  where  the  senate  is  not 
elected  by  the  people,  the  executive  is  denied  the  veto 
power;  the  constitution  says  that  the  governor  shall 
sign  the  laws.  And  it  has  been  judicially  decided  by 
our  highest  courts,  that  laws  which  have  passed  the 
general  assembly,  or  both  houses  of  the  legislature,  are 
valid  without  the  signature  of  the  governor.  And  that 
is  almost  the  only  feature  in  the  Maryland  constitution 
which,  I  think,  could  not  be  changed  for  the  better. 
And  in.  the  federal  government,  also,  every  useful  cau¬ 
tion  exists  in  framing  laws,  without  the  existence  of 
the  oppressive  veto  power  in  the  executive.  In  our 
government,  part  representative,  part  confederative,  no 
law  can  lie  enacted  without  its  first  receiving  the  sanc¬ 
tion  of  the  representatives  of  the  people;  or,  in  other 
words,  a' majority  of  the  people  in  their  aggregate  ca¬ 
pacity,  without  distinction  of  states,  control  in  this 
house.  In  the  confederate  branch,  where  the  sovereign 
states  are  equal,  a  majority  of  those  states  must  give 
sanction  to  ^'ery  bill.  What  greater  safeguard  can 
there  be  to  libe-'  v  than,  to  require  first  the  concurrence 
of  a  majority  of  the  people,  and  then  a  majority  of  the 
states,  to  every  measure  of  public  utility?  Every  re¬ 


straint  beyond  this  is  actual,  real  oppression.  I  regard 
the  abuse  of  delegated  power  to  be  as  obnoxious  to 
censure  as  the  usurpation  of  power.  And  an  execu¬ 
tive  places  itself  within  the  range  of  that  censure,  when 
it  arrogantly  uses,  or  presumptuously  threatens,  the 
veto.  It  is  to  awe  free  and  fearless  deliberation,  by 
suspending  the  sword  of  Damocles  over  the  heads  of 
nervous  politicians,  in  this  hall  or  the  other. 

Historians  inform  us  that,  with  all  his  vices,  “  Nero 
never  attempted  any  thing  against  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  senate.’’ 

Marcus  Aurelius,  though  armed  with  the  imperial 
tribunitian  (or  veto)  prerogative,  said,  in  alluding  to  the 
senate,  “It  is  more  proper  that  I  should  submit  to  the 
opinion  of  so  many  and  such  friends,  than  that  so 
many  and  such  friends  should  follow  my  will.” 

An  able  writer  says,  “  It  was  by  adding  the  tribu¬ 
nitian  power  ( hitercedare  vetare )  to  the  military,  in 
their  own  persons,  that  the  Roman  emperors  consum¬ 
mated  the  ruin  of  the  republic.”  “It  was  by  this 
mode,”  says  Tacitus,  “that  Augustus  found  means, 
without  the  name  of  king  or  dictator,  to  make  himself 
superior  to  the  legislative  and  executive  powers  of  the 
commonwealth.” 

If  the  Romans  lost  their  liberty  by  the  union  of  the 
military  and  the  veto  power  in  the  same  hands,  how 
can  it  be  preserved  in  this  nation,  when  you  unite  in 
the  same  hands,  which  have  now  the  military  and 
veto,  the  power  of  the  purse,  which  you  propose  to  do 
by  the  bill  now  on  your  table? — a  power  which  Augus¬ 
tus  never  possessed. 

But  in  these  modern  days,  a  president  is  called  a 
Roman  patriot,  who  freely  uses  this  detested  instru¬ 
ment  of  tyranny.  Though  Pliny  boasts,  in  panegyriz¬ 
ing  Traian,  “  that  the  emperor  never  allowed  himself 
to  annul  or  prevent  the  execution  of  the  senate’s  de¬ 
crees.” 

I  will  not  dwell  longer  on  this  subject  than  to  say  - 
that,  as  it  was  by  the  use  of  the  veto  that  Louis  XVI. 
lost  his  head — so  may  the  next  American  who  shall 
use  it  lose  his  personal  popularity. 

But  the  president  has  thought  fit  to  read  to  congress 
a  lecture  upon  constitutional  law,  and  gravely  tells  us 
that  a  Bank  of  the  United  States  would  be  unconstitu¬ 
tional.  Yes,  sir,  he  would  fain  convince  us  that  the 
constitution  was  in  his  keeping,  and  that  he  will  not 
let  the  rude  hands  of  the  representatives  of  the  people 
profane  it.  Mr.  Chairman,  how  much  crime  has  been 
committed,  how  much  blood  has  been  shed,  by  fanati¬ 
cism,  under  the  pretext  of  serving  the  cause  of  religion? 
How  much  usurpation  and  tyranny  have  been  prac¬ 
tised,  upon  the  pretence  of  saving  the  constitution  and  v 
serving  the  people?  Let  history  answer — for  every 
volume  can  answer,  from  the  creation  of  the  world  to 
the  present  moment.  Who  is  this  mighty  expounder 
of  the  constitution?  Is  he  the  venerable  and  glorious 
man  who  presided  over  the  deliberations  of  the  con¬ 
vention  that  formed  that  sacred  instrument?  Or  is  he 
the  wise  and  distinguished  individual  whose  pen  gave 
it  form  and  proportion,  and  who  has  been  emphatically 
called  the  father  of  the  constitution?  No,  sir,  he  is  not. 

But  he  is  Martin  Van  Buren,  of  Kinderhook.  The 
same  individual  who  informed  the  nation  in  his  inau¬ 
gural  address,  on  the  east  front  of  the  capitol,  that  he 
was  the  first  president  elected  who  had  not  participated 
in  the  patriotic  struggles  of  the  revolution;  who  thought 
it  proper  to  say,  for  the  information,  perhaps,  of  the  la¬ 
dies  present,  that  he  was  born  since  those  ancient  days. 

He  is  the  first  and  chief  of the  modern  expounders  of  the 
constitution.  Yes,  sir,  even  Amos  Kendall,  an  officer 
not  of  the  constitution  but  of  the  law,  says  that  he  is  a 
limb — yes,  sir!  the  right  arm,  I  suppose — of  the  execu¬ 
tive  body,  and  has  dared  to  read  a  homily  to  the  courts 
upon  their  duties  and  the  constitution.  It  is  time,  for 
the  dignity  of  this  house  and  the  nation,  that  such  inso¬ 
lence  and  effrontery  should  be  frowned  down,  if  not 
punished.  But  I  will  leave  these  distinguished  person¬ 
ages  for  a  moment,  and  allude  to  others.  There  is 
another  class  of  politicians  in  this  house,  who  have 


7 


been  thrown  into  ecstaeies  because  Mr.  Van  Buren 
says  that,  as  he  construes  the  constitution,  congress 
cannot  create  a  United  States  bank.  They  call  them¬ 
selves  the  true  state  rights  old  dominion  republican  de¬ 
mocrats  of  the  Jeffersonian  school,  and  quote  the  name 
of  that  patriot,  for  every  purpose,  numberless  times,  in 
every  speech  with  which  they  favor  this  house.  My 
mind  is  in  doubt  whether  such  displays  should  be 
treated  gravely  or  lightly.  Gentlemen  seem  to  speak 
as  if  no  one  had  read  and  understood  Mr.  Jefferson’s 
writings  but  themselves,  and  quote  slips  from  and  frag¬ 
ments  of  his  letters  written  some  fifty  years  ago,  before 
the  existence  of  a  United  States  bank.  I  have  been 
amused  to  see  the  dreadful  warfare  of.  words  carried  on, 
among  those  southern  state  rights  politicians,  who  dis¬ 
pute  upon  subtleties  too  refined  to  be  perceived  by  my 
mental  vision.  One  descants  upon  constitutional  law, 
and  all  eagerly  listen,  in  hope  to  hear  some  idea  which 
may  impinge  against  something  which  Mr.  Jefferson 
may  have  loosed  written  or  said,  believing  it  will  be 
his  political  destruction  at  home.  Quick  as  thought,  a 
messenger  is  sent  to  the  library,  to  produce  a  letter  or 
conversation  of  Mr.  Jefferson.  The  orator  ends,  and 
another  begins  with  anticipated  victory  joyously  iliu- 
\  mining  his  features,  and  his  southern  friend  is  handled 
without  gloves  or  mercy.  But  with  what  propensity 
for  long  speaking  which  is  so  remarkable  in  the  south, 
where  all  are  imaginative  children  of  the  sun,  and 
where  all  possess  the  copia  verhorum  in  an  eminent  de- 
ree,  he  soon  runs  foul  of  some  other  opinion  of  Mr. 
efferson,  on  some  other  and  foreign  subject.  Yes, 
and  another  more  mercury-footed  page  is  posted,  to  tell 
the  first  to  be  swift.  Then  another  state  rights  Jeffer¬ 
sonian  old  dominion  true  republican  democrat  rises, 
and,  with  the  merciless  vengeance  of  a  Samson,  he 
routs  and  vanquishes  the  political  Philistines  before 
him,  behind  him,  and  around  him,  horse,  foot,  and  dra- 
—  goons.  These  gentlemen  regard  it  high  treason,  verily, 
to  differ  in  the  minutest  particular  from  Mr.  Jefferson. 
What  a  bombastic  Englishman  once  said  of  Homer, 
they  think  true  of  Jefferson: 

Read  Homer  once,  and  you  can  read  no  more, 

For  all  books  else  appear  so  mean,  so  poor, 

Verse  will  seem  prose;  but  still  persist  and  read, 

And  Homer  will  be  all  the  books  you  need. 

They  regard  it  heresy,  beyond  the  benefit  of  clergy, 
if  any  man  dare  speak,  think,  or  breathe,  without  pro¬ 
ducing  the  authority  of  Mr.  Jefferson;  and  he  is  read 
out.  of  the  state  rights  party.  They  call  to  my  mind  an 
anecdote  which  occurred  in  my  own  state  on  the  death 
^  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  in  the  best  days  of  Maryland 
hospitality,  before  she  was  governed  as  she  now  is,  by 
uncles  and  aunts,  who  are  all  united  by  either  affinity 
or  propinquity,  who  fill  all  places,  and  hold  the  reins  of 

fovernment  in  their  feeble  and  effeminate  grasp — for 
laryland  is  pretty  much  like  the  rest  of  the  southern 
states.  They  have  all  been,  for  the  last  ten  years,  like 
so  many  barrels  ot  frozen  cider — the  spirit  has  not  es¬ 
caped,  but  it  has  become  concentrated;  some  of  them 
now  show  signs  of  reanimation,  and  enlivening  feelings 
are  beginning  to  pervade  them;  and  we  may  hope  that 
even  “Rip  Van  Winkle”  (North  Carolina)  will  in  time 
open  his  wondering  eyes.  But  to  my  anecdote.  The 
news  reached  a  coterie  of  thorough-going  federalists, 
who  were  dining  on  the  Eastern  Shore  of  Maryland, 
where  wine  and  wit  were  flowing  in  equal  streams;  all 
expressed  in  general  exclamation  their  bitter  sorrow; 
all,  save  one,  became  earnest  and  eloquent  in  speaking 
of  the  powers  of  that  great  man’s  mind- — of  the  great 
services  he  had  rendered  to  the  country,  and  the  heavy 
loss  which  the  nation  had  sustained,  and  how  much 
they  lamented  it.  At  length,  .Tosiah  Bailey,  the  pre¬ 
sent  attorney  general  of  Maryland,  who  was  re¬ 
markable  for  a  high  order  of  intellect,  when  he  would 
venture  to  exercise  it,  setting  down  his  empty  wine¬ 
glass,  said  to  his  bevy  of  friends,  that  he  had  listened  to 
the  expressions  of  grief  which  the  sad  news  had  called 
from  them,  but  he  felt  that  his  grief  was  greater  than 


theirs,  because  his  loss  was  greater  in  the  death  of 
Hamilton;  for  as  long  as  Hamilton  lived  (said  he)  he 
had  never  been  put  to  the  labor  and  trouble  of  investi¬ 
gating  questions  for  himself,  and  that,  as  Hamilton  was 
dead,  he  now,  alas,  would  be  forced  to  the  dire  neces¬ 
sity  of  thinking  for  himself. 

I  could  but  think,  since  this  discussion  has  com¬ 
menced,  if  Mr.  Jefferson  had  not  left  behind  him  some 
two  volumes  of  state  papers,  one  volume  of  corres¬ 
pondence,  and  Iris  notes  on  Virginia,  how  awfully  an¬ 
noyed  some  of  the  Virginia  politicians  would  be,  if 
driven,  like  Josiah  Bailey,  to  think  for  themselves. 
What  would  these  gentlemen  do  if  the  point  d’appui  of 
their  political  lever  were  destroyed? 

An  able  member  from  Virginia  informed  us,  last 
night,  that  he  considered  Mr.  Jefferson  the  polar  star 
that  directed  his  course.  Suppose  we  draw  imagina¬ 
tion  from  around  the  figure,  and  examine  it  by  the  test 
of  real  life.  Will  a  traveller  always  keep  his  eye  on 
the  polar  star?  If  he  should  direct  his  gaze  continually 
that  way  in  his  journey,  he  will  soon  find  that  furs 
would  add  to  his  comfort;  he  would  next  find  that  the 
white  bear  and  the  wandering  Indian  would  be  the 
only  living  things  about  him;  and  the  next  step  he 
would  find  himself  plunging  into  Fymmes’s  arctic 
hole.  Will  the  prudent  and  skilful  mariner  look  alone 
at  the  north  star,  in  directing  his  vessel’s  way  over  the 
trackless  ocean?  At  times  he  is  forced  to  look  at  other 
fixed  if  less  beautiful  luminaries,  and  finds  them  equally 
true  and  useful.  Yes,  sir,  astronomy  and  navigation 
teach  him  to  point  his  glass,  at  times,  to  all  the  bright 
stars  in  the  zodiac,  and  the  power  of  human  mason 
makes  them  subservient  to  its  control.  _  ' 

So  I  should  fain  think  the  practical  American  states¬ 
man  should  view  every  star  in  the  firmament,  or,  to 
quit  the  figure,  should  read  all  that  has  been  written  by 
the  wise  and  the  good,  and  then  dare  to  think  for 
himself. 

When  Jefferson  embarked  in  the  glorious  cause  of 
the  revolution,  did  he  take  Solon  or  Lycurgus,  Sidney 
or  Hampden,  for  his  model  of  greatness?  Did  he  take 
Locke  or  Milton  as  the  text-books  of  hi3  creed?  No, 
sir,  he  did  not.  He  read  all  that  patriots  had  written; 
he  read  deeply  the  volumes  of  human  nature:  and 
then,  sir,  he  dipped  his  pen  into  his  own  mind,  and 
wrote  the  immortal  declaration  of  independence.  He 
had  no  model;  daring  to  think  and  to  act  for  himself, 
he  made  himself  great  as  he  was. 

We  are  in  committee  of  the  whole  on  the  state  of  the 
union;  and  I  am  unwilling,  as  an  American  citizen,  to 
sit  silently  and  hear  Mr.  Jefferson’s  name  quoted,  to 
effect  every  narrow  and  selfish  purpose.  His  fame  is 
the  property  of  the  whole  nation,  and  is  not  placed  in 
the  hands  of  a  few  southern  politicians.  Mr.  Jefferson 
had  faults,  as  all  men  have;  but  Mr.  Jefferson  was  a 
man  of  enlarged  and  expansive  mind.  And  if  any  su¬ 
pernatural  power  could  resuscitate  his  body  with  the 
magic  wand  of  one  of  old,  as  we  read  in  solemn  history, 
and  present  him  living  before  us,  he  would  rebuke  his 
friends  for  using  his  name,  as  it  has  been,  on  many  oc¬ 
casions. 

Mr.  Jefferson  doubted,  before  the  first  United  States 
bank  was  established,  whether  it.  was  constitutional  to 
establish  such  an  institution.  But  did  he  advise  gene¬ 
ral  Washington  to  put  his  veto  upon  it?  No,  sir.  He 
cautions  him  against  using  the  veto — he  urges  him  to 
respect  the  representatives  of  the  people.  This  he  did 
in  the  last  sentence  of  his  letter  to  general  Washing¬ 
ton,  in  1791.  He  says,  “it  must  be  added,  however, 
that  unless  the  president’s  mind,  on  a  view  of  every 
thing  which  is  urged  for  and  against  this  bill,  is  totally 
clear,  that  it  is  unauthorized  by  the  constitution;  if  the 
pro  and  the  con-hang  so  even  as  to  balance  his  judg¬ 
ment,  a  just  respect  for  the  wisdom  of  the.  legislature 
would  naturally  decide  the  balance  in  favor  of  their 
opinion.” 

Such  is  the  manly  language  of  a  great  mind;  and  I 
wish,  for  the  interest  of  the  country,  that  1  is  modern 
friends  knew  how  to  appreciate  it.  He  recommends 


s 


no  veto,  but  cautions  the  president  against  it.  He  ad¬ 
vises  the  president  to  respect  the  legislature.  This  is 
the  language  of  a  true  democrat.  A  democrat  is  he 
who  will  think  for  himself,  vote  for  himself,  speak  for 
himself,  and  obey  the  laws  and  decisions  of  the  tribu¬ 
nals  of  the  country.  A  man  who  puts  on  the  blind- 
bridle  of  party,  and  allows  himself  to  be  caparisoned 
with  party  trammels,  is  not  a  democrat — he  is  half  a 
vassal.  A  democrat  must  be  a  free  thinker  and  a  free 
talker — a  free  and  fearless  political  actor. 

Whilst  Mr.  Jefferson  spoke  and  wrote  freely  his  sen¬ 
timents,  he  knew  how  to  respect  the  opinions  of  others. 
He  respected  the  constitution  and  obeyed  the  laws. 
When  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  established, 
he  acquiesced  in  deference  and  With,  cheerfulness.  And 
in  1804,  after  he  was  exalted1  to  the  presidency,  he 
signed  a  bill  authorizing  the  bank  to  establish  branches 
in  the  territories.  If  he  had  not  surrendered  his  first 
opinion,  he  placed  himself  in  the  attitude  of  being  guilty 
of  base  perjury  in  sanctioning  the  measure;  and  I  would 
not  venture  to  give  utterance  to  the  opinion  I  would  en¬ 
tertain  of  the  man  who  would  bring  such  a  charge 
against  him. 

It  was  but  last  night,  while  listening  to  an  able  mem¬ 
ber  from  the  old  dominion,  who  was  quoting  Jefferson 
against  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  that  I  turned  to 
a  learned  friend  from  Virginia,  by  whom  I  was  sitting, 
and  said  that  I  really  believed  that,  if  Mr.  Jefferson  was 
on  this  floor,  and  saw  the  distresses  of  the  country,  he 
would  be  first,  and  warmest  to  advocate  a  United  States 
hank.  My  friend  remarked  that  I  appreciated  justly 
Mr.  Jefferson’s  character;  for  he  had  heard  a  few  days 
ago  a  distinguished  gentleman,  who  was  a  neighbor  of 
Mr.  Jefferson,  assert  that  Mr.  Jefferson  had  said  that, 
if  the  state  bank  system  was  to  be  tolerated,  the  only 
way  to  control  it,  and  to  give  a  good  currency,  was  to 
have  a  Bank  of  the  United  States.  But  this  fact  has 
been  alluded  to  by  the  able  gentleman  who  preceded 
me  [Mr.  Pope.]  That  he  said  so,  I  have  not  the  smallest 
douht.  Your  supreme  court,  last  winter,  decided  that 
the  state  banks  were  constitutional.  Then,  if  Mr.  Jef¬ 
ferson’s  opinions  are  to  be  quoted,  they  would  be  in  fa¬ 
vor  of  a  United  States  bank. 

But  those  very  gentlemen,  who  wish  to  chain  down 
Mr.  Jefferson’s  opinions  to  the  narrowest  views  on  all 
subjects,  will  find  themselves  in  an  awkward  predica¬ 
ment  at  the  next  session.  1  predict,  Mr.  Chairman, 
that  they  will  then  quote  Mr.  Jefferson  as  the  greatest 
latitudinarian  who  ever  filled  the  presidential  chair. 

When  the  question  of  the  annexation  of  Texas  to  the 
union  shall  come  up,  as  I  expect  it  will  next  winter, 
these  gentlemen  will  quote  Mr.  Jefferson  as  a  prece¬ 
dent,  because  he  recommended  the  purchase  of  Lou¬ 
isiana. 

Mr.  Jefferson  has  admitted,  that  that  purchase  was 
made  without  any  authority  being  given  in  the  consti¬ 
tution.  .  But  still  he  recommended  it,  and  signed  the 
bill.  Sir,  he  acted  wisely;  he  acted  as  a  philosophic 
statesman  should  have  acted.  There  are  occasionally 
and  rarely  great  national  emergencies,  which  no  framers 
of  a  constitution  can  foresee.  Those  emergencies  must 
be  met,  and  acted  upon  promptly.  This  was  one  of 
them.  In  such  a  case,  all  public  functionaries  are  jus¬ 
tified  in  adapting  their  course  to  the  circumstances. 
Whilst  they  venerate  the  constitution,  they  are  required 
by  duty  to  obey  what  must  be  the  sense,  not  of  a  party, 
but  of  the  whole  nation  in  the  emergency,  and  adopt 
such  measures  as  will  meet  the  wishes  of  the  present 
generation,  and  which  they  are  convinced  will  meet 
with  the  approbation  of  all  posterity.  Such  occurrences 
are  but  seldom  presented,  but  still  they  do  sometimes 
occur.  And  Mr.  Madison  said  truly,  in  his  able  re¬ 
port  upon  the  Virginia  resolutions  of  1793,  that,  “  as  the 
constitution  is  above  the  law,  so  are  the  people  above 
the  constitution.”  That  maxim  should  be  received 
with  caution,  to  be  sanctioned  only  when  the  people 
desire  a  change  in  their  organic  law,  or  when  great  na¬ 
tional  exigencies  arise,  such  as  I  have  alluded  to. 

Some  of  these  southern  constitutional  lawyers  seem 


to  revel  in  denunciations  against  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States — not  only  some  of  the  Virginia  politicians, 
but  the  able  member  from  South  Carolina,  [Mr.  Pick¬ 
ens,]  who  sprung  into  the  front  rank  in  this  debate. 
Some  new  light  has  illumined  his  path.  I  thought,  if 
any  state  in  the  union  had  acquiesced  in  the  constitu¬ 
tionality  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  it  was  South 
Carolina.  If  the  people  have  erred  in  sustaining  the 
bank,  South  Carolina  has  inculcated  that  error,  for  all 
of  her  great  men  have  advocated  it.  In  1S16,  seven 
out  of  eight  of  her  representatives  voted  for  the  charter 
of  the  United  States  bank.  Yes,  sir,  Messrs.  Calhoun, 
Chappell,  Edwards,  Huger,  King,  Lowndes,  Middle- 
ton,  Pickens,  Taylor,  and  Woodward;  and  Mr.  May- 
rant  stood  “solitary  and  alone”  against  it.  But  the 
onward  path  of  modern  genius  can  demonstrate  that 
all  these  men  were  ignorant  of  the  constitution  and 
their  duties. 

“We  think  our  fathers  fools,  so  wise  we  grow; 

Our  wiser  sons,  no  doubt,  will  think  us  so.” 

Yes,  sir,  Mr.  Calhoun,  who  was  a  southern  fixed 
star,  has,  by  some  inscrutable  phenomena  of  nature,  by 
some  undiscoverable  law  of  attraction,  wandered  from 
his  station,  and  is  now  in  the  northern  polar  hemisphere; 
or,  rather,  is  now  a  planet  revolving  around,  by  attrac¬ 
tion  and  repulsion,  the  executive  centre.  Sir,  I  grieve 
at  the  sudden  transition,  because  I  like  Mr.  Calhoun 
personally.  But  he  has  made  himself  a  living  warning, 
to  the  opinions  I  have  expressed,  how  dangerous  it  is 
for  any  free-thinking  and  generous  man,  whether  in 
public' or  private  life,  to  pin  his  faith  to  the  skirts  of  any 
man.  Mr.  Calhoun’s  political  life  has  been  most 
strangely  erratic.  If  I  should  wish  to  find  an  argu¬ 
ment  in  favor  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  I  would 
read  his  speech  made  in  1816;  if  I  wished  to  find  a  con¬ 
firmation  of  those  opinions,  I  would  read  his  speech 
made  in  the  twenty-third  congress;  if  I  wished  to  find 
an  argument  against  the  bank,  I  would  read  his  recent 
speech  made  in  the  twenty-fifth  congress;  if  I  wished 
to  find  an  argument  in  favor  of  the  tariff,  I  would  read 
his  speech  made  in  1816;  if  I  would  wish  to  find  an 
argument  against  the  tariff,  I  would  read  at  least  a  do¬ 
zen  speeches  which  he  has  made  within  the  last  tour 
years;  if  I  wished  to  find  an  argument  in  favor  of  forts 
and  fortifications,  I  would  read  his  report  made  when 
he  was  secretary  of  war;  if  I  wished  to  find  an  argu¬ 
ment  against  forts  and  fortifications,  I  would  read  his 
speech  delivered  in  the  twenty-third  congress;  if  I 
wished  to  gain  proof  that  he  was  friendly  to  the  tariff 
and  internal  improvements,  I  would  ask  for  it  from  the 
gentlemen  of  Pennsylvania,  who,  some  ten  or  twelve 
years  ago,  urged  his  name  for  the  presidency,  and  I 
would  be  answered  that  they  urged  his  claims  because 
they  thought  him  ultra  on  those  subjects;  if  I  wished  to 
find  arguments  against  that  system,  they  would  be 
found  in  every  speech  which  he  has  delivered  on  any 
subject  whatever  for  the  last  six  years.  Lei  die  gene¬ 
rous  and  chivalric  young  men  of  the  south  follow  such 
a  polar  fixed  star,  and  they  will  find,  when  too  late  to 
retrieve  their  standing  and  usefulness,  that  they  had 
been  following  an  ignis  fatuus,  winch  had  been  leading 
them  from  swamp  to  bog,  from  bog  to  glen,  from  glen 
to  morass,  and  finally  left  them  in  a  cypress  swamp  of 
the  most  impenetrable  darkness.  He  may  be  quoted 
for  any  political  opinion,  as  a  distinguished  judge  once 
said  Croke’s  reports  could  be  quoted  for  any  legal 
opinion.  I  had  rather  at  once  cut  my  political  juglar 
than  follow  such  a  star;  for  if  I  did  not,  the  people 
would  soon  do  it  for  me;  and  I  regard  suicide  prefera¬ 
ble  to  public  execution.  I  was  amused  at  the  gallant 
bearing  of  my  chivalrous  friend  from  South  Carolina, 
[Mr.  Pickens,]  when  he  took  the  lead,  conscious  of  his 
right  and  ability  to  lead,  in  this  debate;  it  proved  to  my 
mind  that  his  southern  feeling  still  animated  his  bosom. 
I  thought  it  seemed  cruel,  though  it  was  just,  when  he 
required  the  clerk,  with  his  strong  voice,  to.  read  out 
the  names  of  those  who  had  voted  for  and  against  gene¬ 
ral  Gordon’s  proposition  a  few  years  age.  I  thought 


9 


that  that  was,  to  his  new  allies,  “the  most  unkindest 
cut  of  all.”  I  was  then  seated  in  the  chair  on  the  clerk’s 
platform,  which  is  now  occupied  by  the  honorable 
senator  from  Massachusetts,  Mr.  Webster,  [Mr.  J. 
pointed  in  the  direction  of  the  clerk’s  seat,]  philoso¬ 
phizing  and  surveying  the  effect  it  would  produce  on 
many  countenances,  and  perceived,  as  some  names 
were  pronounced,  their  faces  would  crimson;  others 
would  blanch;  some  twisted  in  their  chairs,  whilst 
others  left  the  hall,  as  old  Proteous  once  quitted  an  un¬ 
pleasant  theatrical  hall;  whilst  in  some  old  and  hardened 
sinners,  who  had  long  and  often  offended,  not  an  eye 
would  wink,  or  a  muscle  move,  or  a  single  feature 
change.  They  seemed  to  look  as  if  they  were  con¬ 
scious  that  they  were  past  all  forgiveness,  and  had 
made  up  their  minds  to  look  with  more  composure 
upon  their  past  acts,  than  upon  the  enormity  of  those 
which  they  fully  expected  to  perpetrate;  whilst  I  heard, 
or  thought  I  heard,  several  voices  involuntarily  exclaim, 
“expunge  the  journal.”  That  gentleman,  [Mr.  Pick¬ 
ens,]  whilst  he  is  advocating,  in  his  able  speeches, 
state  rights,  is  at  the  same  time  supporting  a  measure 
which  is  the  very  definition  of  consolidation.  The 
whole  reasoning  amounts  to  this:  because  congress 
\  has  not  the  power  to  establish  a  bank,  therefore  con¬ 
gress  must  surrender  into  the  hands  of  the  executive 
all  power  over  the  public  money. 

Whilst  I  regard  a  Virginian  or  South  Carolinian, 
who  will  act  upon  the  principles  of  his  ancestors,  and 
dare  think  for  himself,  as  one  of  the  noblest  beings  in 
creation;  I  regard  that  different  Lilliputian  race,  who 
are  seven-months  children,  always  talking  about  the 
constitution,  and  never  reading  it,  who  ride  about  with 
saddlebags  and  the  revised  code,  and  spout  “constitu¬ 
tion  and  Jefferson”  at  every  court-house  and  cross¬ 
road,  as  the  unsafest  guides  in  the  world;  and  if  they 
should  happen  to  be  such  lawyers  as  “rare  Ben  Jonson” 
—  describes,  I  would  warn  the  people  to  beware  of  them 
who 

“Give  forked  counsel:  take  provoking  gold 
On  either  hand,  and  put  it  up, 

So  wise,  so  grave,  o  f  so  perplexed  a  tongue, 

And  loud  withal,  that  would  not  wag,  nor  scarce 
Lie  still  without  a  fee.” 

There  may  be  one  other  class  of  southern  politicians 
who  are  worse  constitutional  advisers.  They  are  those 
of  more  standing  at  the  bar,  and  who  are  called  great 
special  pleaders — the  true  green-bag  gentry — who  know 
all  the  arts  of  filing  a  declaration,  or  framing  a  de¬ 
murrer — who  can  at  once  analyze  in  their  minds  all  the 
>  dry  maxims  of  the  black  letter  and  the  lignum-vitse 
terms  of  the  law — who  know  how  to  make  thin  distinc¬ 
tions,  and  can  quibble  on  the  point  of  a  cambric  needle. 
Such  men  I  would  counsel  with  upon  a  contingent  re¬ 
mainder  or  executory  devise;  but  they  are  not  such 
men  as  I  would  select  as  my  guides  to  expound  the 
constitution  on  this  floor,  or  to  make  them  my  arche¬ 
types  as  philosophical  statesmen.  Hair-split  distinc¬ 
tions  prove,  they  think,  superior  wisdom;  and  they  will 
beautify  them  with  rich  diction  and  elegant  manner, 
and  leave  you  in  a  perfect  paradise  of  ecstacy,  figures, 
and  flowers.  Mr.  Chairman,  there  are  safer  and  better 
guides.  Let  those  who  wish  to  understand  the  consti¬ 
tution  read  the  debates  of  the  convention  which  framed 
that  instrument — read  the  debates  in  the  state  conven¬ 
tions  which  adopted  it — read  the  federalist  and  chief 
justice  Marshall’s  decisions  upon  it:  let  him  do  this, 
and  then  he  will  dare  to  think  for  himself,  and  will 
know  something  about  it.  And  in  this  reading  he  may 
learn  that  Mr.  Jefferson  was  not  in  this  country  at  the 
time  of  the  formation  of  the  constitution,  but  was  minis¬ 
ter  in  France.  As  a  politician,  Mr.  Jefferson  was  su¬ 
perior  to  Mr.  Madison;  as  an  expounder  of  the  con¬ 
stitution,  I  regard  him  as  inferior. 

Can  any  one  doubt  that,  had  Mr.  Van  Buren  recom¬ 
mended  the  establishment  of  a  United  States  bank, 
chartered  wbh  cautious  and  well-guarded  restraints,  it 
would  have  been  passed  by  this  congress,  and  that  in 


less  than  six  months  every  solvent  bank  would  resume 
specie  payments,  and  the  overwhelming  misery  and  dis¬ 
tresses  of  the  people  would  have  changed  into  a  brighter 
and  more  prosperous  aspect?  I  do  not  doubt  it.  Had 
Mr.  Van  Buren  said  that  he  had  been  disappointed  in 
the  new  experiment,  as  all  of  his  friends  had  been;  that 
it  was  the  part  of  wisdom  now  to  adopt  the  old  and 
well-tried  policy  of  his  predecessors,  a  policy  which  had 
acted  well:  if  then  some  of  his  friends  here  had  op¬ 
posed  it,  he  could  have  held  up  the  example  of  Madi¬ 
son,  and  been  sustained  by  the  nation.  Madison’s 
name  would  have  outweighed  a  host  of  modern  poli¬ 
ticians.  When  Mr.  Madison  stood  alone  in  his  vote  in 
the  last  Virginia  convention,  against  all  the  rest,  an  able 
American  writer  said  that  he  would  sooner  have  taken 
Mr.  Madison  to  be  right  than  all  the  rest  put  together. 
As  much  as  I  admired  his  wisdom,  1  could  not  say  that 
much.  But  Mr.  Van  Buren’s  course  has  been  called  a 
firm  one;  and  a  distinguished  senator  now  in  my  eye, 
[Mr.  Webster,]  Said,  in  a  speech  which  I  heard  with 
great  pleasure,  in  another  quarter  of  this  capitol,  that 
after  reading  Mr.  Van  Buren’s  message,  and  finding 
that  he  was  really  tracking  the  footsteps  of  the  late 
president,  he  would  not  charge  him  with  a  want  of 
firmness.  I  differ  with  that  distinguished  gentleman, 
and  many  others  who  have  used  the  same  language  in 
this  and  the  other  end  of  the  capitol.  I  will  not  call  it, 
at  the  same  time,  timidity,  but  I  will  call  it  rashness. 
The  brave  Roman  who  sent  his  gallant  son  at  the  head 
of  an  army,  cautioned  him  as  much  against  rashness 
as  he  did  against  cowardice.  “The  mean  of  true  cou¬ 
rage,”  said  lie,  “lies  between  the  extremes  of  cowardice 
and  rashness.”  It  is  a  proof  of  an  absence  of  moral 
courage  for  any  man  to  persist  in  wrong  because  his 
friends  urge  him  to  do  so.  Mr.  Van  Buren  ha;d  an  op¬ 
portunity  of  showing  moral  fortitude  in  an  eminent  de¬ 
gree;  for  it  does  require  no  small  degree  of  moral  cou¬ 
rage  for  a  man  to  gently  chide,  softly  to  rebuke,  a  ruin¬ 
ous  career  of  his  friend.  Had  Mr.  Van  Buren  said  to 
his  friends  that  he  had  believed  in  the  experiment  as 
they  had  done,  but  he  and  they  had  been  disappointed; 
it  had  overwhelmed  the  whole  land  in  misery  and  dis¬ 
tress;  his  supporters  as  w7ell  as  his  opponents  were  beg¬ 
gared  by  it;  that  he  felt  it  his  duty  to  abandon  the 
scheme  which  had  so  signally  failed,  and  he  had  deter¬ 
mined,  for  the  good  of  the  nation,  to  go  back  to  the 
well-beaten  path  in  which  Washington  and  Madison, 
and  all  the  other  presidents,  trod — he  might  have  lost 
here  and  there  a  friend,  but  he  would  have  gained  a 
hundred  for  one;  he  would  have  proved  himself  worthy 
of  the  office  which  he  holds,  proved  himself  of  true  and 
generous  courage,  and  would  have  then  been  placed 
by  the  side  of  the  amiable  and  patriotic  Madison.  But 
what  does  he  do?  When  the  popular  phrenzy  was 
highest  against  a  bank,  Mr.  Van  Buren,  in  an  evil  hour, 
committed  himself  against  the  bank,  supposing  the  pet 
bank  system  would  succeed;  because  general  Jackson 
had  sworn,  in  his  wrath,  that  it  should  succeed.  But  it 
failed — exploded — blowing  up  the  treasury  as  w7ell  as 
the  banks;  and  the  people  were  ruined.  Mr.  Van  Bu¬ 
ren  was  in  a  dilemma,  and  could  not  go  for  a  United 
States  bank,  and  preserve  his  consistency;  and  had  not 
magnanimity  of  feeling  to  confess  error,  repent,  and 
ask  forgiveness  of  the  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands 
whom  he  had  helped  to  ruin.  What  was  he  to  do  in 
this  emergency,  as  congress  had  been  called  in  the 
panic  of  the  moment?  He  was  pledged  to  go  in  the 
foot-steps  of  the  late  president,  and  there  were  no  foot¬ 
steps.  Mr.  Van  Buren  was  at  fault,  sadly  at  fault.  A 
fast  runner  was  posted  to  the  Hermitage,  two  letters 
are  quickly  written  by  general  Jackson,  published  in 
the  Globe,  and  thus  foot-steps  are  made  where  none 
were  before.  Never  did  Tiberius  reign  with  as  much 
awful  terror  as  when  he  retired  from  Rome  and  went 
to  his  gloomy  and  secluded  hermitage,  and  sent  his  au¬ 
thoritative  and  bloody  edicts  to  a  slavish  and  affrighted 
senate. 

One  or  two  gentlemen  have  thrown  out,  during  the 
discussion  on  this  bill,  or  the  one  which  was  acted  on  a 


10 


few  days  ago,  a  delicate  intimation  that  the  expediency 
of  the  bank  might  be  more  clear  to  their  minds  if  the 
constitution  were  altered  so  as  to  express  distinctly  that 
congress  should  have  power  to  establish  a  bank.  Of 
such  allusions  I  think  as  Lowndes  did,  in  1816,  when 
he  was  requested  by  a  member  to  move  an  amendment 
to  the  constitution  to  authorize  congress  to  establish  a 
bank.  Lowndes  said  that  he  had  two  objections  to 
doing  so:  one  was,  that  he  thought  such  an  amend¬ 
ment  would  not  be  adopted;  and  the  second  was,  that 
he  thought  the  power  already  existed  in  the  consti¬ 
tution. 

Mr.  Chairman,  I  do  not  profess  to  be  a  constitutional 
lawyer.  I  have  read  some  law,  it  is  true,  but  have 
never  practised  in  the  courts.  I  have  been  admitted  to 
practise  in  the  court  at  the  base  of  this  capitol,  as  a  great 
many  other  unworthy  lawyers  have  been  admitted.  I 
studied  law  in  Virginia,  under  the  most  distinguished 
jurist  of  that  state — a  personal  and  political  friend  of 
Mr.  Jefferson.  I  was  taught  to  believe  that  it  was  the 
duty  of  a  lawyer  to  respect  the  constitution  and  the 
laws;  that  the  constitution  had  authorized  courts  armed 
with  power  to  decide  litigated  questions;  that  from  the 
inferior  courts  there  was  a  right  to  appeal  to  the  higher, 
and  that  the  decision  of  the  supreme  court  of  the  United 
States  was  final,  and  its  powers  were  broadly  and 
clearly  written  in  the  constitution;  that  if  the  supreme 
court  were  to  decide  a  question  or  principle,  which  did 
not  suit  the  popular  taste,  the  decision  still  was  final; 
but  the  people  had  a  remedy  in  two  ways,  pointed  out 
by  the  constitution,  by  which  congress  and  the  states 
should  not  alter  the  decision,  but  could  alter  the  consti¬ 
tution,  /as  they  have  on  some  occasions  altered  that 
instrument.  This  was  the  doctrine  which  I  was  taught; 
this  is  the  doctrine  which  all  my  reading  and  reflection 
have  since  confirmed. 

The  supreme  court  has  said  that  it  will  not  decide 
political  questions;  but  that  same  court  has  twice  said 
that  the  constitutionality  of  the  bank  was  a  legal  ques¬ 
tion,  and  has  twice  decided  it  to  be  constitutional.  The 
decisions  of  that  court  have,  in  every  case,  been  acqui¬ 
esced  in  by  the  people  of  the  whole  nation.  General 
Washington,  who  presided  over  the  convention  which 
framed  the  constitution;  Mr.  Madison,  who  was  most 
prominent  in  framing  it;  Alexander  Hamilton,  who  in 
intellect  was  second  to  no  man  in  the  nation;  have 
given  their  sanction  to  a  bank.  The  congress  of  1791, 
which  chartered  the  first  United  States  bank,  voted  two 
to  one  in  favor  of  it — ayes  39,  noes  20.  The  greater 
portion  of  the  members  of  that  congress,  who  were  in 
the  convention  which  framed  the  constitution,  voted  for 
it.  Every  president  has  given  it  his  sanction:  Wash¬ 
ington,  J.  Adams,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Monroe,  .T.  Q. 
Adams,  Jackson — for  the  latter,  in  one  of  his  messages, 
said  he  would  condescend  to  write  a  charter,  if  congress 
would  meanly  ask  him  to  do  so:  every  president,  save 
Martin  Van  Buren;  and  even  he  signed  a  memorial  to 
have  a  branch  established  at  Albany.  The  man  who 
would  raise  his  voice  agaist  this  overwhelming  authori¬ 
ty,  I  would  respect  more  for  his  pertinacity  and  obdura¬ 
cy  of  opinion  than  for  his  dispassionate  judgment. 

We  are  told  by  metaphysicians  that  nothing  is  so  dif¬ 
ficult  to  prove  as  self-evident  propositions.  And  T  re¬ 
gard  the  right  of  congress  to  establish  a  bank  as  being 
so  decidedly  clear  as  to  remove  all  necessity  for  other 
argument  on  that  subject. 

The  president  says  that  against  a  United  States  bank 
the  sentiments  of  the  people  are  “ deliberately  fixed." — 
How  does  he  know  that?  What  spirit  of  divination 
does  he  possess,  to  know  whether  the  people  always 
think  with  him?  He  has  changed  against  the  pet  bank 
system;  he  was  for  it  three  months  ago;  his  message 
contains  his  palinodia.  May  not  the  people,  who  changed 
against  the  bank  in  hopes  of  bettering  their  condition, 
change  for  it  now,  to  bring  themselves  where  they  were, 
rather  than  be  beggared  and  miserable?  If  they  should 
be  convinced  that  it  will  improve  their  present  distres¬ 
sed  situation,  they  will  very  quickly  change.  Self-inter¬ 
est  is  a  powerful  lever;  and  the  president  and  his  friends, 


by  their  acts,  have  induced  the  people  to  look  to  it. — 
The  people  will  not  ruin  themselves  Decause  Mr.  Van 
Buren  has  held  out  false  hopes,  false  lights,  by  which 
they  have  been  wrecked;  they  will  come  back,  and  de¬ 
nounce  and  quit  all  crude  experiments. 

But  when  the  committee  of  New  York  merchants 
told  Mr.  Van  Buren  of  the  dreadful  distress  in  that  city, 
he  did  not  believe  it;  he  thought  it  all  panic.  The  re¬ 
cent  elections  ought  to  be  a  gentle  warning.  But  no 
man  is  so  blind  as  he  who  will  not  see;  and  I  am  half 
disposed  to  believe  that  some  politicians  do  not  yet  know 
that  the  gold  experiment  has  failed. 

The  expediency  of  a  bank  presents  a  very  different 
proposition. 

We  can  often,  Mr.  Chairman,  look  [into  the  future 
by  the  lights  of  the  past.  And  the  past  furnishes  to  my 
mind  the  most  conclusive  evidence  that  a  United  States 
bank  is  highly,  almost  indispensably,  necessary  to  pro¬ 
mote  the  rapid  and  uniform  prosperity  of  the  nation. — 
Without  money,  no  business  can  prosper;  and  without 
a  convertible  currency,  and  a  near  uniformity  of  ex¬ 
changes,  the  prosperity  of  all  business  is  in  a  great  de¬ 
gree  paralyzed.  Whilst  the  inequality  of  exchanges  in 
a  depreciated  currency  will  secure  wealth  to  the  brokers 
and  money  exchangers,  in  the  same  degree  will  jt  di¬ 
minish  the  profits  of  the  farmer  and  the  mechanic,  of 
the  merchant  and  the  man  of  useful  enterprise. 

Whenever  we  have  had  a  United  States  bank,  we 
have  had  every  where  a  convertible,  redeemable  cur¬ 
rency,  by  which  the  value  of  property  could  be  clearly 
estimated;  whenever  we  have  not  had  a  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  we  have  had  a  stoppage  of  specie  pay¬ 
ments,  distress,  and  individual  ruin.  If  we  are  to  judge 
of  effects  by  causes,  what  can  be  more  convincing  and 
conclusive?  When  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  was 
in  existence,  exchanges  from  New  Orleans  to  New 
York  were  never  more  than  one  per  cent.;  often  at  par; 
and  sometimes,  from  one  city  to  the  other,  above  par. 
There  was  then  but  a  reasonable  and  useful  number  of 
state  banks. 

How  are  the  exchanges  now?  We  can  sometimes 
judge  of  great  things  by  small.  A  friend  sent  me  a 
hundred  dollar  note,  a  few  days  ago,  on  a  bank  in  Flo¬ 
rida,  which  he  had  been  trying  to  pass  off,  but  could 
not.  I  went  to  a  broker,  and  he  offered  me  seventy- 
five  dollars  in  District  paper  for  the  hundred  dollars  on 
the  Florida  bank.  I  offered  him  the  note  for  eighty-five 
dollars,  and  he  refused  it.  I  called  on  the  delegate  from 
Florida,  to  know  whether  the  bank  was  good.  He  in¬ 
formed  me  that  it  was  perfectly  solvent,  and  as  sound 
as  any  bank  in  the  world;  that  its  paper  passed  freely 
in  Florida.  Then,  a  man  who  owes  a  debt  of  seventy- 
five  dollars  in  this  city,  who  may  reside  in  Florida,  will 
have  to  pay  one  hundred  dollars  in  paper,  which  he 
takes  at  par  at  home,  to  liquidate  his  liability  in  this 
city.  Such  is  the  discount,  at  but  one  half  the  extent 
of  our  nation.  If  my  mind  had  ever  doubted  on  the 
subject  of  the  expediency  of  a  United  States  bank,  this 
single  circumstance  would  have  removed  everv  doubt. 
The  government  has  disconnected  itself  from  the  cur¬ 
rency,  and  all  things  are  in  confusion,  and  I  fear  will 
remain  so  until  we  have  what  was  appropriately  called, 
yesterday,  by  my  eloquent  friend  from  New  York,  [Mr. 
Hoffman,]  the  balance  wheel  of  a  United  States  bank. 
I  have  travelled  almost  in  every  part  of  the  union  with 
United  States  bank  paper,  and  never  met  with  an  in¬ 
dividual  in  my  life  who  did  not  prefer  receiving  it  to 
specie.  But  the  condition  of  our  exchanges  has  been 
enlarged  upon  by  several  gentleman,  and  with  great 
force  by  the  able  member  who  preceded  me;  and  I  will 
not  consume  the  time  of  the  committee  on  that  branch 
of  the  subject. 

L  had  intended  to  offer  some  considerations  upon, 
firrst,  the  right  of  the  government  to  create  and  estab¬ 
lish  a  good  and  sound  currency  for  the  people,  and  a 
safe  and  salutary  mode  of  exchange;  and,  secondly,  the 
duty  of  the  federal  government  to  exercise  that  power: 
but  I  have  been  anticipated  by  the  able  member  from 
Winchester,  [Mr.  Mason,]  who  made  an  argument 


11 


upon  tills  subject,  clear  and  lucid;  one  which  has  been 
unanswered,  because  it  is  unanswerable.  He  showed 
the  evils  which  would  be  inflicted  on  the  people  by  es¬ 
tablishing  one  currency  for  the  government  and  another 
for  the  people,  lie  proved  the  close  affinity  of  both, 
and  their  relative  duties  and  responsibilities.  I  will  only 
ask,  in  addition,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  if  the  government 
will  not  exercise  any  control  over,  and  feel  no  obliga¬ 
tion  to  regulate,  the  currency  and  the  medium  of  ex¬ 
changes,  for  what  purpose  was  this  federal  alliance 
formed?  Why  was  it  that  the  states  gave  up  to  the 
general  government  the  whole  control  over  commerce, 
it'  that  government  will  not  adopt  means  for  carrying  on 
that  commerce  with  a  currency  uniform,  or  as  nearly 
so  as  human  wisdom  can  devise?  Why  have  they 
made  the  sacrifice  of  so  large  and  surrendered  of  so 
great  a  portion  of  their  sovereignty,  as  to  be  denied  the 
right  to  regulate  commerce  between  neighboring  states 
and  foreign  nations,  if  the  general  government  will  take 
no  step  to  promote  this  interchange?  What  other  con¬ 
sideration  could  they  receive  for  this  immense  surren¬ 
der  of  state  sovereignty,  but  that  the  government  would 
extend  its  paternal  care  to  effect  a  good  currency  and 
safe  and  easy  exchanges?  But  the  president,  with  a 
1  profound  ignorance  of  both  the  spirit  and  the  intention 
of  the  constitution,  has  told  us  that  the  people  might  as 
well  expect  the  government  to  aid  in  the  transportation 
of  their  merchandise,  as  to  cause  or  establish  a  good 
system  of  exchanges.  It  is  the  first  time  that  an  Ame¬ 
rican  president  has  uttered  such  a  sentiment  of  disre¬ 
gard  to  an  injured  people;  and  I  trust  that  their  indigna¬ 
tion  will  make  it  the  last.  If  this  is  to  be  the  establish¬ 
ed  doctrine  and  policy  of  the  government,  each  state 
will,  or  might  as  well,  stand  in  the  relation  of  separate 
and  distinct  nations;  for  each  will  bear  the  same  relation 
to  the  other,  so  far  as  currency  is  concerned,  as  Canada 
does  to  the  United  States,  or  the  different  nations  of 
—  Europe  do  to  each  other.  And  the  quicker  they  reas¬ 
sume  the  power  over  commerce,  the  better  will  it  be  for 
their  interest  and  happiness. 

The  miserable  bunglers  of  the  executive,  who  have 
attempted  to  regulate  and  improve  the  currency,  have 
not  yet  discovered  that  they  are  totally  ignorant  of  the 
subject,  and  have  failed  in  their  experiments;  and  even 
now  feel  disposed,  like  a  bewildered  pilot,  to  let  the  ship 
of  state  float  at  the  mercy  of  the  winds  and  the  waves, 
in  hopes  of  reaching  a  safe  point  which  their  pretended 
skill  could  net  attain,  or  leap  into  the  long-boat,  and  de¬ 
sert  the  crew. 

The  president,  after  writing  us  a  long  message  con¬ 
taining  many  maxims  of  sound  policy,  many  long  sen- 
*  fences  of  sophisms,  much  plausibility,  and  more  bad 
reasoning,  finally  hands  us  over,  by  way  of  recommen¬ 
dation,  to  his  secretary  of  the  treasury,  for  the  details  of 
his  new  schemes  and  untried  experiment.  I  will  use 
this  occasion  to  express  my  utter  abhorrence  of  the  long 
essays  which  are  annually  given  by  our  executive  to 
the  representatives  of  the  people  and  the  states.  The 
executive  seems  to  think  it  his  duty  to  send  us  a  long 
lecture  upon  our  public  duties,  and  assumes  as  much 
importance  as  if  lie  were  a  professor  lecturing  a  class 
of  sophomores  upon  the  principles  of  philosophy,  and 
schooling  us  in  the  line  of  our  duty. 

The  king  (or  now  the  queen)  of  England  and  the 
king  of  France  send  their  messages  or  speeches  to  the 
parliament  or  the  chamber  of  deputies,  of  about  a 
span’s  length,  simply  saying  that  the  nation  is  at  peace 
with  the  world,  the  king  is  thankful  for  the  supplies 
granted,  and  that  he  will  take  pleasure  in  carrying  ou 
such  measures  as  the  parliament  or  chambers  may 
think  proper  to  promote  the  interest,  of  the  nation.  If 
either  the  king  of  England  or  the  king  of  France  were 
to  threaten  a  veto,  neither  would  hold  his  crown  a 
month,  if  he  would  escape  with  his  head.  I  think  it 
ought  to  be  an  impeachable  offence  for  any  executive 
officer  of  government  to  send  a  message  or  communi¬ 
cation  to  congress  longer  than  a  column  of  an  ordinary 
newspaper,  unless,  after  that  space,,  statistics  and  tabu¬ 
lar  exhibits  should  require  more. 


The  secretary  of  the  treasury  has  sent  us  a  volume  of 
eighty-eight  large  pages,  laying  off  his  subject,  like  the 
monster  in  grave  history,  into  “seven  heads  and  ten 
horns.”  I  have  read  it  by  candlelight  and  by  daylight;  and 
in  groping  through  it  for  a  clear  idea,  I  could  not  find 
one!  Now  and  then  you  will  find  a  beggarly  thought 
enshrouded  in  a  whole  mist  and  cloud  of  words.  But 
his  thoughts  and  ideas  are  like  the  arts  of  the  cuttle-fish, 
which,  naturalists  inform  us,  when  pursued,  throws  out, 
as  quick  as  magic,  a  dark  liquid  which  embarrasses 
and  bewilders  its  pursuers,  whilst  it  escapes  from  pur¬ 
suit  amid  its  own  self-created  darkness.  You  pursue 
his  thoughts,  but  in  the  pursuit  you  are  left  in  darkness. 
If  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  is  a  man  of  delicate  and 
refined  feelings,  I  would  not  have  suffered  the  perturba¬ 
tion  of  mind  which  he  must  have  endured,  whilst  he 
was  thinking  of  and  writing  that  report,  for  all  the  pub¬ 
lic  money  which  he  has  handled  for  the  last  four  years. 
I  could  never  fully  realize  to  my  mind  the  description 
which  Milton  has  given  of  one  of  his  heroes,  who  was 
confused  and  disappointed,  until  1  read  the  secretary  of 
the  treasury’s  report.  Milton  describes  a  personage 
who  attempted  a  great  reform — not,  perhaps,  in  curren¬ 
cy,  but  in  civil  government — (and  in  quoting  Milton  I 
do  not  wish  to  interfere  with  the  criticisms  of  my  elo¬ 
quent  friend  from  New  York,  [Mr.  Hoffman,]  and  my 
no  less  able  friend  from  South  Carolina,  [Mr.  Pickens,] 
who  have  rendered  him,  by  their  able  review,  of  such 
questionable  authority.)  This  reformer  was  disappoint¬ 
ed,  as  the  secretary  has  been,  and  was  humbled  from 
his  high  estate;  and  “nine  times  the  space  which  mea¬ 
sures  day  and  night  to  mortal  man,”  he  lay  “ confound¬ 
ed ,  though  immortal.”  And  if  that  immortal  personage 
could  not  recover  his  faculties  for  nine  days,  amidst  the 
ruin  around  him,  why  should  we  be  surprised  that  it 
should  take  Mr.  Woodbury,  who  is  only  mortal,  nine 
times  nine  days  to  regain  his,  amid  the  distress  and 
ruin  which  he  has  created?  In  good  sooth,  I  have  no 
doubt  that  he  was  confounded  whilst  writing.  Indeed, 
I  am  satisfied  that  he  had  not  regained  any  of  his  facul¬ 
ties,  save  his  “modest  assurance,”  when  he  asked  con¬ 
gress  to  give  him  these  powers,  and  to  make  him,  ac¬ 
cording  to  his  will  and  judgment,  the  sole  receiver  and 
disburser  of  the  public  moneys. 

And  here,  Mr.  Chairman,  1  will  claim  the  kind  atten¬ 
tion  of  the  committee  whilst  I  say  a  few  words  in  rela¬ 
tion  to  the  treasury  department,  and  the  bill  under  con¬ 
sideration  granting  it  additional  (I  might  say  unlimited) 
powers.  I  feel  conscious,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  what¬ 
ever  I  may  say  can  have  but  little  weight  in  this  house 
or  with  the  nation;  but  I  should  be  happy  if  I  could  flat¬ 
ter  myself  that  any  thought  which  I  may  express  would 
awaken  reflection  in  the  mind  of  any  member  of  this 
house,  or  any  citizen  not  a  member.  The  day  was, 
Mr.  Chairman,  when  a  public  officer  thought  himself 
an  officer  of  the  country  and  responsible  to  the  laws. 
Things  have  changed.  Now,  every  officer,  however 
important  or  insignificant,  considers  himself  an  execu¬ 
tive  officer,  and  reponsible  to  the  executive.  This  mo¬ 
dern  doctrine  has  obtained,  and  therefore  I  must  con¬ 
sider  the  bill  in  relation  to  modern  usage  and  construc¬ 
tion.  Still,  I  will  offer  my  protest  against  the  construc¬ 
tion.  It  might  be  more  curious  than  profitable  to  ac¬ 
count  for  this  transition  of  custom  and  construction. — 
Perhaps  it  may  be  found  in  the  tact,  that,  as  general 
Jackson  had  overwhelming  popularity,  and  rewarded 
most  liberally  his  partisan  friends,  each  who  felt  anx¬ 
ious  to  be  promoted  thought  that,  by  placing  himself 
under  the  executive  wing  and  will,  he  would  be  sooner 
rewarded  for  his  servility;  and  congress,  under  the  zeal 
of  party  feeling,  thought  that  their  friend  and  chief  could 
not  err — that  the  president  “could  do  no  wrong” — and 
therefore  acquiesced.  Whilst  I  know  this  to  be  the 
prevailing  construction  in  this  house  and  out  of  it,  still 
I  will  venture,  perhaps  with  temerity,  to  express  my 
disagreement. 

The  secretary  ol  the  treasury  is  an  officer  not  known 
in  the  constitution.  Then,  under  the  constitution  he 
can  claim  no  powers.  He  has  been  created  by  law, 


1-2 


and  to  that  law  he  should  look  for  not  only  his  existence 
as  an  officer  of  government,  but  for  the  powers  and 
duties  which  have  been  assigned  to  him.  And  he 
should  look  to  all  the  laws  (and  not  to  the  executive) 
which  assign  him  duties,  for  the  quantity  and  discretion 
of  duty  which  may  be  imposed  upon  him  to  discharge. 
He  is  not  to  look  to  the  nominating  power  for  his  au¬ 
thority  of  action,  but  to  the  creating  power.  The  law 
brings  him  into  being,  and  the  law  alone  rightfully  pre¬ 
scribes  his  power  of  action.  The  executive  might  have 
exercised  the  constitutional  negative  at  the  time  of  his 
creation;"  but  it  gave  its  sanction  to  the  law,  and  in 
that  sanction  it  yielded  its  acquiescence  to  all  the  pow¬ 
ers  of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  which  run  with  and 
are  contained  in  the  law  of  his  creation,  and  to  the  sub¬ 
sequent  laws  which  enlarge  or  restrain  his  sphere  of 
duty.  A  question  of  great  interest  might  here  naturally 
arise,  whether  the  powers  granted  by  the  constitution 
and  those  granted  by  the  laws  should  be  decided  by  a 
common  rule  of  interpretation.  I  have  not  the  time 
now,  if  I  possessed  the  ability,  to  make  an  argument 
upon  the  true  rules  of  construction  of  both  the  constitu¬ 
tion  and  the  laws.  I  will  content  myself  for  the  presen 
by  quoting  a  rule  laid  down  by  Mr.  Madison,  in  a  let¬ 
ter  to  Mr.  Ingersoll,  in  1831.  UA  constitution,  (says 
Mr.  Madison,)  being  derived  from  a  superior  authority 
[to  the  laws,]  is  to  be  expounded  and  obeyed,  not  con¬ 
trolled  or  varied,  by  the  subordinate  authority  of  a  legis¬ 
lature.  A  law,  on  the  other  hand,  resting  on  no  higher 
authority  than  that  possessed  by  every  successive  legis¬ 
lature,  its  expediency  as  well  as  its  meaning  is  within 
the  scope  of  the  latter.”  If  this  rule  is  correct,  the  se-  j 
cretary  of  the  treasury  should  direct  his  eye  to  congress  I 
in  the  discharge  of  his  official  duties,  and  not  make 
himself,  as  he  has  made  himself,  or  allowed  himself  to 
be  made,  the  supple  instrument  in  the  executive  hands. 

Those  who  urge  that  the  president  has  entire  control 
over  the  secretary  of  the  treasury,  because  he  has  the 
power  under  the  constitution  to  nominate  to  office,  run 
into  error;  and,  in  order  to  make  their  construction 
more  plausible,  assume  (what  is  not  the  fact)  that  the  1 
secretary  is  a  mere  subordinate  auxiliary  officer  of  the 
executive  department;  that  the  president  is  not  only  re¬ 
sponsible  for  his  own  acts,  but  is  responsible  for  the  j 
acts  of  all  officers  of  government  whom  he  may  no-  j 
minate;  and  being  responsible,  they  maintain,  for  the 
acts  of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury,  he  has  a  right  j 
to  control  the  actions  of  the  secretary,  and  to  assume,  i 
in  the  secretary’s  stead,  the  entire  responsibility  of 
the  secretary’s  acts.  The  president,  I  humbly  con- 1 
ceive,  has  the  mere  right  to  nominate  (or  he  may  sus-  ' 
pend)  a  person  to  discharge  the  duties  of  the  office  of 
secretary  of  the  treasury;  the  senate,  a  co-ordinate 
branch  of  the  executive,  quoad  the  appointing  power, 
have  a  right  to  confirm  or  to  reject  the  nominee.  This 
gives  no  power  to  either  to  control  the  actions  of  the 
secretary.  But  it  is  the  law  that  throws  dignity  and 
duties  around  the  secretary,  and  the  lav/  assigns  his 
powers  and  his  obligations.  For  the  fidelity  of  dis¬ 
charging  his  duties,  he  becomes  responsible  neither  to 
the  nominating  nor  the  appointing  power,  but  he  be- 1 
comes  only  responsible  himself  to  the  law;  and  for  an 
infraction  of  tne  law  or  malfeasance  in  office,  he  is 
amenable  to  the  lav/,  and  answerable  before  tribunals 
adequate  to  pronounce  decision  of  acquittal  or  condem¬ 
nation  for  all  of  his  official  acts.  The  president  may 
nominate — congress  can  abolish.  If  the  modern  doc¬ 
trine  is  correct,  as  has  been  assumed,  that  the  right  of 
the  president  to  nominate  to  office  carries  with  it  a  right 
to  control  the  acts  of  a  secretary,  then  the  president, 
who  has  legislative  pov/er  as  well  as  executive  duties 
to  perform,  (for  no  law  can  be  passed  without  the  sig¬ 
nature  of  the  president,)  can,  by  a  parity  of  reasoning, 
not  only  interpret  and  control,  and  arrest  the  operation 
of  the  law  which  he  has  signed,  (as  has  been  done,)  but 
he  can  set  the  constitution  at  defiance,  and  find  his 
justification,  not  in  the  sanctions  of  that  instrument,  or 
in  the  written  law  of  the  land,  but  by  assuming  the  re¬ 
sponsibility  of  outraging  both — seek  his  justification  in 


making  an  appeal,  not  to  the  tribunals  of  the  country, 
but  to  the  American  people,  to  countenance  his  attack 
upon  the  institutions  of  the  country,  upon  the  co-ordi¬ 
nate  departments  of  government — for  assuming  sole 
executive  and  legislative  power — and  for  arrogating  un¬ 
controlled  power  over  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  and 
the  currency  and  money  of  the  government.  When 
the  representatives  of  the  people  of  the  several  states 
framed  the  constitution,  they  assigned  the  president  his 
duties,  and  required  him,  in  the  discharge  of  those  offi¬ 
cial  duties,  to  make  his  conduct  quadrate  with  that  in¬ 
strument;  nowhere  recognizing  his  right  to  control  a 
public  officer  in  the  discharge  of  his  legal  duties;  no¬ 
where  recognizing  his  right,  in  justification  of  an  infrac¬ 
tion  of  the  constitution  and  the  laws,  to  appeal  to  the 
people,  in  order  to  gain  their  sympathy  or  contempt, 
their  forgiveness  or  their  censure.  Every  usurper  ap¬ 
peals  to  Ihe  people:  Ciesar  appealed  to.  the  people;  so 
did  Cromwell  and  Bonaparte;  all  deceived  the  confi¬ 
dence  of  the  people,  and  each  trampled  upon  their  lib¬ 
erties.  A  candidate  for  office  may  appeal  to  the  people 
— a  public  officer  should  appeal  to  the  law;  and  if  the 
law  will  not  suit  the  people,  they  can  order  their  repre¬ 
sentatives  to  alter  it.  Vvffiether  these  views  are  correct 
or  not,  they  are  still  the  sentiments  I  entertain;  and, 
holding  them,  I  am  free  to  give  them  utterance;  for  I 
believe  this  to  be  a  time  when  every  representative  of 
the  people  should  think  audibly. 

The  law  of  September  11,  1798,  entitled  “an  act  to 
establish  the  treasury  department,”  declares,  in  the  first 
section, 

“That  there  shall  be  a  department  of  the  treasury,  a 
secretary  of  the  treasury,  a  comptroller,  an  auditor,  a 
treasurer,  a  register,”  Ac. 

“Sec.  3.  It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  comptroller  to  sui 
perintend  the  adjustment  and  preservation  of  the  pub¬ 
lic  accounts;  to  examine  all  accounts  settled  by  the 
auditor,  and  certify  the  balances  arising  thereon  to  the 
register;  to  countersign  all  warrants  drawn  by  the  se¬ 
cretary  of  the  treasury,  which  shall  be  warranted  by 
law;  to  report  to  the  secretary  the  official  forms  of  all 
papers  to  be  issued  in  the  different  offices  for  collecting 
the  public  revenue,  and  the  manner  and  form  of  keep¬ 
ing  and  stating  the  accounts  of  the  several  persons  em¬ 
ployed  therein.  He  shall,  moreover,  provide  for  the  re¬ 
gular  and  punctual  payment  of  all  moneys  which  may 
be  collected,”  Ac. 

Sec.  4.  That  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  treasurer  to 
receive  and  keep  the  moneys  of  the  United  States,  and  to 
disburse  the  same  upon  warrants  drawn  by  the  secretary 
of  the  treasury,  countersigned  by  the  comptroller,  recorded 
by  the  register,  and  not  otherwise.  He  shall  take  receipts 
for  all  moneys  paid  by  him,  and  all  receipts  for  moneys 
received  by  him  shall  be  endorsed  upon  warrants  signed 
by  the  secretary  of  the  treasury;  without  which  war¬ 
rant,  so  signed,  no  acknowledgment  of  money  received 
into  the  public  treasury  shall  be  valid.  And  the  said 
treasurer  shall  render  his  account  to  the  comptroller 
quarterly,  (or  oftener,  if  required,)  and  shall  transmit  a 
copy  thereof,  when  settled,  to  the  secretary  ol  the  trea¬ 
sury.  He  shall,  moreover,  on  the  third  day  of  every 
session  of  congress,  lay  before  the  senate  and  house  of 
representatives  fair  and  accurate  copies  of  all  accounts 
by  him,  from  time  to  time,  rendered  to  and  settled  with 
the  comptroller,  as  aforesaid;  as  also  a  true  and  perfect 
account  of  the  state  of  the  treasury.  He  shall  at  all 
times  submit  to  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  and  the 
comptroller,  or  either  of  them,  the  inspection  of  the  mo¬ 
neys  in  his  hands;  and  shall,  prior  to  the  entering  upon 
the  duties  of  his  office,  give  bond,  with  sufficient  secu¬ 
rity,  to  be  approved  by  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  and 
comptroller,  in  the  sum  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars,  payable  to  the  United  States,  with  condition  for 
the  faithful  performance  of  the  duties  of  his  office,  and  for 
the  fidelity  of the  persons  topebiy  him  employ  ed;  which  bond 
shall  be  lodged  in  the  office  of  the  comptroller  of  the  trea¬ 
sury  of  the  United  States.” 

Section  5  assigns  -the  duties  of  the  auditor. 

Section  6,  of  the  register. 


13 


/ 


‘  Sec.  8.  That  no  person  appointed  to  any  office  in¬ 
stituted  by  this  act  shall,  directly  or  indirectly,  be  con¬ 
cerned  or  interested  in  carrying  on  the  business  of  trade 
or  commerce;  or  be  owner,  in  whole  or  in  part,  of  any 
sea  vessel;  or  purchase,  by  himself,  or  another  in  trust 
for  him,  any  public  lands  or  other  public  property;  or 
be  concerned  in  the  purchase  or  disposal  of  any  public 
securities  of  any  state  or  of  the  United  States;  or  take 
or  applj''  to  his  own  use  any  emolument  or  gain  for  ne¬ 
gotiating  or  transacting  any  business  with  said  depart-  ! 
ment,  other  than  shall  be  allowed  lay  law.  And  if  any 
person  shall  offend  against  any  of  the  prohibitions  of 
this  act,  he  shall  be  deemed  guilty  of  a  high  crime  and 
misdemeanor,  and  forfeit  to  the  United  States  the  pen¬ 
alty  of  three  thousand  dollars,  and  shall,  upon  convic¬ 
tion,  be  removed  from  office,  and  forever  thereafter  be 
incapable  of  holding  any  office  under  the  United  States,” 
&c. 

In  1817,  March  3,  four  auditors  wTere  created,  and 
one  comptroller,  additional;  but  the  restraints  upon  each 
officer  are  as  great  as  in  the  law  of  1798. 

I  cannot,  Mr.  Chairman,  but  pause  here  for  a  mo¬ 
ment  to  admire  the  great  wisdom  and  foresight  of  the 
wise  framers  of  these  statutes  in  guarding  thejiublic  mo¬ 
neys  of  the  people,  by  the  variety  of  officers  which  they 
have  created  to  be  guards  and  checks  upon  each  other. 
They  knew  the  frailty  of  human  nature,  and  itsimpotency 
to  resist  the  seductive  influence  of  temptation.  By  these 
statutes,  we  find  that  even  the  secretary  of  the  treasury 
could  not  touch  one  dollar  of  the, public  money;  that  he 
had  as  little  control  over  it  as  any  other  officer  of  the 
government. 

By  the  extracts  of  the  statutes  which  I  have  read,  it  I 
will  be  perceived  that  the  same  law  which  created  the  j 
secretary  of  the  treasury,  created  co-ordinate,  and  I  , 
maintain  co-equal,  officers  of  that  department,  who  were  I 
as  independent  of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  as  they  | 
are  independent  of  the  secretary  of  war;  who  are  as  in-  ! 
dependent  of  the  president  as  they  are  independent  of  j 
each  other.  They  are  not  to  look  to  any  power  but  the  i 
law,  and  that  they  are  to  obey.  The  treasurer  is  re-  | 
quired  to  give  a  large  bond.  To  whom?  to  the  secre-  j 
tary  of  the  treasury?  No,  sir,  to  the  nation.  Then  he 
is  responsible  to  the  nation,  and  not  to  the  secretary. — 
The  co-ordinate  officers,  the  comptrollers,  the  auditors, 
tire  treasurer,  and  the  register,  hold  no  responsibility  to 
the  secretary;  congress  have  appointed  them  guards 
upon  the  public  money  and  upon  the  secretary  of  the 
treasury;  and  I  fondly  hope  that  they  will  so  regard 
themselves.  Rumor  has  reached  my  ear,  upon  the 
wings  of  the  wind,  that  some  officers  have  been  consi¬ 
dered  too  honestly  faithful  to  the  law,  and  would  not 
bend  to  advice  from  a  particular  direction.  It  will  be 
understood  where  I  wish  it  to  be,  when  I  say  to  them, 
be  firm  and  faithful  to  the  law  and  your  duty.  I  will 
say  to  those  officers  in  Washington  and  out  of  it,  whe-  i 
ther  I  know  them  or  not,  whether  they  are  conserva-  j 
fives,  whigs,  or  Van  Buren  men,  as  long  as  they  are  j 
faithful  to  the  laws,  and  firmly  resolved  to  do  their  duty,  j 
I  beg  them  to  consider  me  as  their  friend.  Let  them 
do  their  duty  to  the  people  and  the  laws,  and,  if  perse-  J 
cation  should  assail  them,  I  care  not  how  dark  the 
cloud,  how  fearful  the  storm,  as  long  as  I  have  a  place  on 
this  floor,  I  will  raise  my  humble  voice  in  their  defence. 

But,  to  examine  for  a  moment  the  bill  on  your  table. 
What  does  the  committee  of  ways  and  means  propose 
by  that  bill?  In  a  bill  of  ten  little  sections,  to  blot  out 
from  your  statute  book  all  the  many  laws  which  creat¬ 
ed,  regulated,  restricted,  and  restrained  the  secretary  of 
the  treasury;  and  to  destroy  the  enactments  of  our  fore¬ 
fathers,  which  so  cautiously  guarded  the  public  moneys 
of  the  people.  To  destroy  the  power,  or  to  surrender 
it,  of  the  congress  of  the  United  States  over  the  reve¬ 
nues  of  the  nation,  and  to  place  it  all  in  the  hands  and 
under  the  control  of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury.  This 
is  not  all;  the  bill  proposes  more:  it  proposes  to  give  to 
tlie  secretary,  singly  and  alone,  not  only  power  over  the 
money  of  the  nation,  but  it  also  invests  him  with  legis¬ 
lative  powers.  It  proposes,  in  the  very  first  section,  af-  „ 


ter  saying  that  “the  collectors  of  the  customs,”  “post¬ 
masters,”  &c.,  shall  be  “receivers”  and  “fiscal  agents,” 
that  they  shall  he  governed  “by  any  regulation  of  the  trea¬ 
sury  department”  “which,  in  its  wisdom,  it  may  think 
necessary,”  doc.  In  the  fourth  section,  after  saying 
that  the  receiving  officers  of  the  revenues  “may  be  al¬ 
lowed  any  necessary  additional  expenses  for  clerks, 
fire-proof  chests  or  vaults,  (as  if  the  keeper  of  the  key 
of  a  vault  could  not  have  the  same  ready  access  to  it  as 
he  would  have  to  his  own  private  bureau,)  or  other  ne¬ 
cessary  expenses  of  safe-keeping,  transferring,  and  dis¬ 
bursing  said  moneys; — all  such  expenses,  of  every  cha¬ 
racter ,  to  he  first  expressly  authorized  by  the  secretary  of 
the  treasuiy,  whose  direction  upon  all  the  above  subjects, 
by  way  of  regulation  and  otherwise,  are  to  be  strictly 
followed  by  all  the  said  officers.” 

In  the  fifth  section,  he  has  the  power  “to  appoint  spe¬ 
cial  agents,  as  occasion  may  require,  with  such  reasona¬ 
ble  compensation  as  lie  may  allow;”  “and  reports  are  to 
be  made  in  all  cases,  as  the  secretary  in  his  discretion 
shall  direct.” 

I  ask  any  candid  mind  if  it  is  in  the  power  of  lan¬ 
guage  to  give  more  absolute  and  unqualified  power  over 
the  money  of  the  nation,  and  over  every  officer  who  is  to  re  * 
ceive  or  pay  it,  than  is  given  by  this  bill  to  the  secretary  of 
the  treasury?  Can  such  a  measure  ever  receive  the  sanc¬ 
tion  of  a  majority  of  the  representatives  of  freemen? — 
That  such  a  bill  should  be  received  in  this  house,  with¬ 
out  exciting  the  strongest  feelings  of  indignation,  sur¬ 
prises  me.  That  this  house  should  patiently  allow  any 
committee  to  ask  them,  without  prompt  resentment,  to 
surrender  their  rights,  and  the  rights  of  those  v  whom 
they  represent,  into  the  hands  of  one  single  individual, 
excites  my  distrust  for  the  spirit  of  its  independence. — 
Even  the  slavish  members  of  a  Turkish  divan  would 
rebel  agains  such  a  measure.  If  the  representatives  of 
the  pec  pie  abandon  their  interests  on  this  floor,  I  have 
greatly  mistaken  the  genius  and  character  of  my  coun¬ 
trymen,  if  they  will  not  quickly  abandon  them.  I  use 
this  language  in  no  spirit  of  censure  or  threat,  but  in 
prophecy. 

We  have  wandered  beyond  our  reckoning;  wTe  have 
been  floating  in  an  unknown  sea!  and  our  pilots  are 
ignorant  of  the  seas,  the  wdnds,  and  the  stars.  This 
they  have  proved;  but  still  they  call  on  us  to  trust  to 
them,  although  they  have  run  us  aground;  they  promise 
to  run  on  another  tack,  and  say  they  can  escape  the 
reefs  and  the  breakers.  They  are  in  a  fog,  but  are  still 
determined  to  rush  recklessly  on,  instead  of  using  the 
anchor,  and  run  the  ship  of  state  they  know  not  where. 

It  is  a  good,  a  safe  maxim  with  the  merchants — I 
hope  and  trust  it  will  become  the  maxim  of  the  farmers 
and  the  mechanics — never  to  trust  those  twice,  who  have 
deceived  them  once.  I  was  in  the  panic  session  of  the 
twenty-third  congress,  one  of  the  youngest  (I  know  the 
humblest)  members  on  this  floor.  When  the  rash,  now 
all  know  the  ruinous,  experiment  was  proposed,  almost 
the  entire  executive  party  predicted  that  it  wras  the  com¬ 
mencement  of  a  golden  era — that  every  mechanic 
would  have  all  his  pockets  filled  with  gold.  I  might 
read  extracts  from  fifty  speeches  to  prove  this  assertion, 
if  it  were  necessary.  I  could  read  extracts  from  fifty 
speeches,  made  by  the  opponents  of  that  measure,  to 
prove  that  they  predicted  all  the  dire  effects  which  the 
whole  nation  are  now  groaning  under,  if  that  visionary 
scheme  should  be  adopted. 

What  were  then  promises  on  the  one  side  have  proved 
as  deceptive  as  what  was  then  prediction  on  the  other  is 
now  sad  reality.  If  the  half-starved  children,  and  the 
haggard  looks  of  their  miserable  mothers  and  agonized 
fathers,  which  we  all  have  left  behind  us  in  our  districts, 
be  not  sufficient  proof  of  the  fact,  it  is  to  be  found  in 
the  evidence  of  the  fact  that  the  president  has  convok¬ 
ed  us  at  this  unseasonable  and  unusual  period.  When 
I  saw'  then  around  me  the  grave  and  experienced,  the 
learned  and  practical  men,  discussing  the  whole  policy 
of  our  currency  and  our  government,  I  felt  too  distrust¬ 
ful  of  my  ability,  though  confident  in  my  judgment,  to 
participate  in  that  debate.  But  when  I  have  seen  that 


14 


experiment.  iuu,  .:ic  ^ame  men  who  urged  it  press 
upon  us  another — an  experiment  which  I  believe  will 
make  the  rich  poor  and  the  poor  miserable — I  am  un¬ 
willing  to  be  a  silent  voter;  and,  however  limited  my 
range  of  thought  and  ability,  I  am  still  resolved  to  speak 
the  inmost  feelings  of  my  mind,  if  this  speech  were  to 
be  my  last;  for  diffidence  in  this  crisis  I  do  not  regard  a 
virtue. 

What  is  the  character  of  our  currency  now?  what  is 
the  character  of  our  exchanges?  'what,  let  me  ask  you, 
is  the  condition  of  our  people?  Miserable  beyond  de¬ 
scription  or  parallel.  What  were  the  people  promised, 
if  they  would  go  against  the  United  States  bank,  and 
go  for  the  humbug  experiment?  They  were  promised 
all  that  the  imagination  could  throw  out  to  eager  hope. 
The  farmer  was  told  that  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
checked  his  energies  and  caused  a  failue  in  his  wheat 
crops;  the  mechanic  was  told  that  he  w’ould  never  be  a 
rich  man  as  long  as  there  was  a  United  States  bank; 
the  merchant  was  told  that  exchanges  would  be  im¬ 
proved  if  he  would  but  aid  in  destroying  the  monster; 
the  professional  man  was  led  to  believe  that  he  would 
never  have  a  patient,  or  a  client,  or  a  marital  rite  to 
perform,  if  he  did  not  join  in  a  cry  against  Nick  Biddle 
and  the  bank.  All  were  promised,  and  too  many  be¬ 
lieved,  that  if  they  would  war  against  the  monster  bank, 
the  whole  land  would  flow  in  gold  and  silver;  that  the 
imagination  of  the  travelling  Spaniard  through  South 
America  would  be  changed  from  conceit  to  vivid  and 
tangible  reality;  that  the  houses  would  be  covered  with 
gold  and  silver;  that  the  trees  would  bear  ambrosial  fruits 
of  vegetable  gold;  that  the  whole  nation  would  be  an 
El  Dorado  and  a  specie  paradise;  that  all  might  volup¬ 
tuously  live  without  working,  and  be  rich  without  in¬ 
dustry.  This  picture  was  delightful  to  the  imagination, 
and  it  required  the  sternest  phiiosophy  to  resist  its  cap¬ 
tivating  influence.  For  who,  Mr.  Chairman,  would  la¬ 
bor  for  wealth,  if  he  can  gain  it  by  idleness? 

The  people  were  promised  the  same  national  and  in¬ 
dividual  blessings  which  a  notorious  reformer  in  Eng¬ 
land  once  promised  his  followers  and  believers.  He 
said: 

“There  shall  be,  in  England,  seven  half-penny  loaves 
sold  for  a  penny;  the  three-hooped  pot  shall  have  ten 
hoops;  and  I  will  make  it  felony  to  drink  small  beer:  all 
the  realm  shall  be  in  common.” 

“Away,  burn  all  the  records  of  the  realm.” 

The  last  part  of  this  promise  is  the  first  which  has 
been  kept.  The  constitution  enioins  upon  each  house 
of  congress  to  keep  a  journal  of  records.  The  senate 
have  expunged  their  record.  I  would  to  heaven,  for 
the  honor  and  fame  of  the  nation,  that,  after  expunging, 
they  had  burnt  the  record,  so  that  the  infamy  of  the  act 
might  have  been  consumed  with  the  record! 

Sir,  you  have  falsified  all  your  predictions  and  your 
promises  to  the  people,  and  still  you  have  the  temerity 
to  ask  them  to  go  with  you  in  another  crude  and  untri¬ 
ed  experiment,  which  shows  upon  its  face  a  delusive 
hope  and  a  ruinous  consequence.  Sir,  you  claim  to  be 
the  poor  man’s  only  friend,  and  you  have  brought  the 
poor  man  to  poverty  and  to  ruin. 

You  are  consulting  your  own  ambitious  aggrandize¬ 
ment  at  the  expense  of  the  misery  and  suffering  of  the 
people.  With  consciousness  of  error,  you  still  persist 
in  wrong.  You  first  induced  the  people  to  wage  with 
you  a  war  upon  the  United  States  bank,  and  promised 
them  better  things  and  more  prosperous  times;  you  have 
not  realized  the  hopes  you  awakened.  You  now  tell 
the  people  to  wage  a  war  against  all  banks — and  the  ! 
very  pets  upon  which  you  relied  as  your  instruments  to 
effect  a  better  currency.  Yes,  sir,  you  have  done  all 
this;  and  now,  by  your  executive’s  recommendation, 
you  wish  to  create  a  universal  bankrupt  law.  The 
honorable  chairman  of  the  committee  of  the  judiciary 
has,  creditably  to  himself,  and — I  return  him  my  ac¬ 
knowledgments — to  the  committee,  informed  you  that 
he  is  not  prepared  at  this  time  and  at  this  session  to 
obey  the  executive  will  in  that  request.  Yet  the  senate’s 
committee  have  reported  a  bill  to  annihilate  the  banks 


of  this  District — a  step,  I  suppose,  preparatory  to  a  gene¬ 
ral  bankrupt  law. 

[Here  Mr.  Johnson  was  informed  by  a  voice  from 
behind  him  that  the  chairman  of  the  committee  of  the 
senate  [Mr.  Grundy]  had  asked  leave  that  morning  in 
the  senate  to  be  relieved  from  the  consideration  of  the 
executive  request,  to  establish  a  general  bankrupt  law 
against  the  banks.] 

Mr.  J.  said,  I  return  my  thanks  to  the  voice  which  I 
hear,  and  to  the  honorable  member  from  whom  it  pro¬ 
ceeded,  for  the  information  which  he  has  given  me;  I 
was  not  apprized  of  it  before.  I  regard  it  as  an  omen 
of  better  things;  I  congratulate  this  house,  I  congratu¬ 
late  the  country,  upon  the  fact,  that,  as  pliant  as  the 
senate  have  been,  they  have  not  been  so  reckless  of  the 
public  interest  as  to  go  with  the  executive  in  all  its  mad 
and  violent  projects.  I  have  now,  for  almost  the  first 
time  some  hope  that  there  is  a  redeeming  spirit  in  this 
house,  to  check  and  oppose  some  of  the  crude  and  ruin¬ 
ous  measures  of  the  executive;  and  I  feel  animated  with 
fresh  and  enlivening  sentiments.  But,  sir,  to  resume 
the  entangled  thread  of  my  discourse. 

You  found  it  popular  with  the  public  taste  to  go 
against  the  United  States  bank.  But,  remember,  when 
you  got  the  people  to  go  with  you,  you  promised  a  bet¬ 
ter  currency,  and  a  better  system  of  exchanges;  you  pro¬ 
mised  them  gold  for  bank  notes,  and  prosperity  in  their 
business  for  what  you  called  bank  oppression.  The 
scheme  took  well  on  the  start,  but  failed  in  those  results; 
and  now,  because  you  deceived  the  people  once,  you 
would  fain  believe  that  you  can  make  them  think  that 
it  is  now  the  state  banks — your  pets — that  have  caused 
all  this  misery  and  suffering.  You  are  really,  now,  at¬ 
tempting  a  bold  experiment  on  human  credulity.  Sir, 
you  seem  to  revel  instead  of  sympathizing  in  the  dis¬ 
tresses  of  human  beings:  you  first  deceive,  and  hope  to 
make  atonement  by  misleading.  You  think,  because 
you  got  popular  feeling  against  the  United  States  bank, 
you  can  now  direct  it  against  state  banks,  against  all 
banks.  If  that  fails,  then  to  direct  it  against  all  rich 
men,  and  adopt  the  levelling,  the  agrarian  system. 

Sir,  when  I  read,  in  my  early  youth,  Rochefoucault’s 
maxims,  one  (although  he  seemed  to  “understand  the 
human  heart  as  though  he  had  made  it”)  I  marked 
with  my  pencil  at  the  time,  as  wrong  and  impossible — 
the  maxim  where  he  says  “that  there  is  something  in 
the  distresses  of  our  friends  which  does  not  displease 
us.”  Although  I  read  Dean  Swift’s  approval  of  it,  who 
was  well  read  in  the  secret  impulses  of  human  action, 
still  I  doubted.  He  describes  it  better  in  verse — 

“As  Rochefoucault  his  maxims  drew 
From  nature,  I  believe  them  true; 

This  maxim,  more  than  all  the  rest, 

Too  base  ’tis  thought  for  human  breast — 

That,  in  the  distresses  of  our  friends, 

We  first  consult  our  private  ends; 

And  nature,  kindly  bent  to  ease  us, 

Points  out  some  circumstance  to  please  us.” 

Sir,  I  begin  to  doubt,  and  am  almost  inclined  to  be¬ 
lieve,  that,  in  the  unsophisticated  thoughts  of  less  ex¬ 
perienced  life,  I  was  wrong — when  I  have  seen  and 
witnessed  the  great  excitement  which  was  brought  to 
bear  in  the  public  mind  against  the  late  Bank  of  the  U. 
States,  how  completely  politicians  succeeded  in  elevat¬ 
ing  themselves,  by  destroying  that  institution;  although, 
in  its  destruction,  their  friends,  as  well  as  their  oppo¬ 
nents,  were  whelmed  in  the  same  common  distress  and 
ruin.  Whether  some  of  these  same  politicians  have 
not  looked  on  the  general  ruin  and  misery  with  com¬ 
placency,  and  at  least  consoled  themselves  that,  as  the 
first  experiment  acted  politically  (if  not  financially)  well, 
they  could  now  turn  the  indignation  of  the  people  from 
themselves  against  the  state  banks;  and  if  that  should 
result  as  the  first  experiment  has  terminated,  and  the 
people  should  still  suffer  distress,  that  they  would  say  to 
them,  to  complete  the  glorious  reform  in  our  currency 
and  money  affairs,  the  people  must  go  one  step  further, 
and  it  will  be  but  one  step,  and  direct  their  indignation 


15 


against  every  rich  man:  and  that  there  is  no  freedom 
where  there  is  not  an  equal  distribution  of  property; 
that,  to  be  free,  we  must  have  the  agrarian  loco  foco 
feeling  to  triumph;  that — 

“All  the  realm  shall  be  in  common.” 

Sir,  every  feeling  of  my  nature  startles  at  such  a  mon¬ 
strous  doctrine.  The  doctrine  is  avowed  by  few,  but  many 
are  acting  in  the  way  to  cause  such  a  result.  It  will  fail, 
I  predict.  I  know  it  will  fail.  There  is  too  much  honor 
and  integrity  in  the  composition  of  the  American  charac¬ 
ter  ever  to  allow  such  a  doctrine  to  prevail.  There  is  too 
much  honesty  and  worth  with  the  unaspiring  portion 
of  our  farmers  and  mechanics  to  suffer  such  sentiments 
to  obtain  a  place  in  any  honest  bosom.  I  believe  that 
one  half  of  those  politicians  who  talk  so  much  about 
the  poor,  are  their  worst  enemies;  I  judge  so,  because 
their  measures  are  not  calculated  to  aid,  but  to  oppress, 
the  indigent.  Professions  of  patriotism  have  become 
trite  and  stale.  I  judge,  and  would  urge  the  whole  na¬ 
tion  to  judge,  of  public  men,  not  by  their  professions, 
but  by  their  acts;  it  is  the  safest  test.  The  pinching  dis¬ 
tresses  of  the  people  will  force  them  to  adopt  it.  Y ou 
have  touched  the  most  sensitive  nerve  in  the  American 
system.  You  have  touched  the  pocket  nerve,  and  it 
communicates  directly  to  the  thinking  faculties  of  the 
mind.  *‘Of  all  rebellions,”  said  Lord  Bacon,  “those  of 
the  belly  are  the  worst.” 

The  attempt  to  draw  a  distinction  between  the  rich 
and  the  poor,  which  is  so  often  hinted  at  in  the  message, 
is  delusive,  because  it  is  false.  The  president  alludes 
to  the  people  and  to  the  poor  to  gain  their  favor,  but  re¬ 
commends  nothing  to  relieve  their  embarrassments.  If 
he  turns  his  eye  at  all  to  the  sufferings  of  the  people,  it  is 
a  mere  sidelong  look  that  falls  upon  them 

“As  cold  as  the  moonbeam  on  the  barren  heath.” 

He  will  not  carry  their  produce  to  market,  or  think 
about  their  exchanges.  The  emperor  of  China  ploughs 
a  furrow  every  year,  in  respect  to  agriculture.  The 
president  might  have  written  one  line  in  his  message  in 
favor  of  that  interest.  And  yet  politicians  talk  about  the 
poor — the  laboring  men — the  very  men  who  have  suf¬ 
fered  the  most  by  their  pretended  friendship. 

We  hear  the  terms  of  “the  poor”  and  “the  aristocrats” 
used  in  every  public  place  and  in  every  public  docu¬ 
ment.  These  epithets  are  unjust  when  applied  to  the 
people.  We  have  no  such  distinctive  classes;  and  those 
politicians,  who  denounce  the  honest  man  who  has 
made  a  competent  fortune  by  honest  industry  and  fru¬ 
gality  as  an  aristocrat,  are  themselves  the  worst  sort  of 
aristocrats. 

As  general  Foy,  in  the  French  chamber  of  deputies, 
£  was  enlarging  with  much  earnestness  in  a  discussion 
in  the  chamber,  and  had  just  used  the  word  aristocracy , 
a  voice  from  one  of  the  ministers  asked  him  to  define  it. 
“ Aristocracy ,’  ’he  replied  at  once,  and  quickly — “ aristoc¬ 
racy ,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  is  the  league,  the  coali¬ 
tion,  of  those  who  wish  to  consume  without  producing, 
live  without  working,  occupy  all  public  places  without  be¬ 
ing  competent  to  fill  them,  seize  upon  all  honors  without 
meriting  them:  that  is  aristocracy. 

This  I  regard  as  a  true  and  practical  definition  of  the 
word.  It  is  as  just  as  it  was  happy.  There  is  no  such 
class  in  this  country  as  the  poor,  if  you  will  exclude  the 
tenants  of  the  alms-houses.  Every  man  in  this  country, 
who  works  at  daily  labor,  gains  wealth  enough  to  se¬ 
cure  him  all  the  comforts  of  life,  and  many  of  its  luxu¬ 
ries;  is  well  fed  and  well  clothed;  and  has,  at  the  end 
of  the  year,  spare  money  and  feels  properly  as  proud 
and  as  independent  as  any  man  in  the  nation.  He 
knows  that,  whilst  he  is  one  of  the  people,  he  is  part  of 
the  government;  that  his  voice  is  felt  and  obeyed  as 
much  as  if  he  had  millions.  He  knows  that,  whilst  he 
has  to  labor  hard,  the  laws  will  protect  him  in  his  rights, 
and  in  the  possession  of  the  rewards  of  his  industry. 

The  laws  of  our  country,  of  every  state  in  the  union, 
prevent  a  large  accumulation  of  wealth  in  the  hands  of 
the  few.  The  accumulation  of  one  generation  is  divid¬ 
ed  with  the  descendants  in  the  next.  All  that  is  want¬ 
ed  to  acquire  wealth  is  stability  in  wise  laws  to  regulate 


the  currency.  Repeated  fluctuations  uiiU  -j 

such  as  our  rulers  have  produced,  cause  want  of  confi¬ 
dence,  and  finally  distress.  Confidence  causes  credit; 
and  a  system  of  credit,  when  controlled  within  cautious 
limits,  adds  to  individual  enterprise,  which  augments 
the  wealth  of  the  nation.  Credit  is  the  poor  man’s  capi¬ 
tal;  and  by  it,  in  a  moral  point  of  view,  the  nation  is 
benefitted;  for  every  individual  is  more  anxious  to  pre¬ 
serve  the  rectitude  of  his  integrity  and  honesty,  when  he 
knows  that  by  doing  so,  it  may  advance  his  wealth  and 
prosperity.  The  rich  man  of  last,  year  is  the  poor  man  this; 
and  the  poor  man  this,  is  the  rich  man  next  year;  so  the 
changes  go  round  the  circle,  from  year  to  year,  from 
generation  to  generation.  From  some  knowledge  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  give  it 
as  my  opinion,  that,  of  the  many  who  possess  great 
wealth,  a  large  number  of  them  have  started  from  hum¬ 
ble  means,  and  have  been  the  architects  of  their  own 
fortunes,  than  those  who  have  derived  it  from  patrimo¬ 
nial  inheritance. 

By  the  laws  of  descent  of  the  states,  it  is  impossible 
that  any  family  or  class  of  individuals  ever  can  accu¬ 
mulate  so  much  wealth  as  to  be  enabled  to  oppress  any 
portion  of  the  people.  Public  functionaries  that  are 
wise  should  be  cautious  in  awakening  prejudices  against 
any  class  in  the  community,  when  the  interests  of  all 
are  so  naturally  dependant  upon  each  other,  and  are 
knit  together  like  the  woof  of  the  spider’s  web,  so  that 
whatever  touches  or  deranges  a  part  must  be  felt  at  the 
most  remote  and  attenuated  extremities.  They  should 
hold  out,  by  establishing  a  safe  and  convertible  curren¬ 
cy  and  wise  regulations  of  law,  inducements  an^i  facili¬ 
ties  to  the  needy  industrious  to  accumulate  property; 
and  in  this  way  to  give  a  stimulus  to  industry;  for  it  is 
not  in  the  amount  of  specie  which  may  be  in  a  nation 
that  you  alone  are  to  judge  of  its  prosperity  and  its 
wealth — a  better  criterion  is  its  productive  industry.  A 
man  who  acquires  property  accumulates  wealth;  and 
when  he  has  done  this,  he  can  soon  convert  it  into  mo¬ 
ney.  The  man  who  has  but  a  hundred  dollars,  will 
find  that  at  six  per  cent,  it  would  support  him  with  the 
necessaries  of  life  for  a  month;  but,  if  he  were  to  expend 
it  in  government  lands  at  a  dollar  and  a  quarter  an  acre, 
and  apply  his  labor  upon  those  lands,  the  production 
would  not  only  support  him  and  his  family,  but  the  sur¬ 
plus  of  his  productions  would  enable  him  annually  to 
increase  his  wealth.  But  he  must  have  either  the  capi¬ 
tal  in  money,  or  the  capital  gained  by  his  credit;  for  if 
there  is  neither  capital  nor  credit  in  the  country,  to  al¬ 
low  him  to  establish  himself,  he  must  be  lor  ever  poor 
and  miserable.  Then  I  maintain  that,  to  promote  the 
prosperity  of  the  poor,  you  must  supply  them  with  the 
facilities  of  acquiring  either  capital  or  credit,  or  rather 
of  both.  And  this  brings  me  to  an  important  part  of 
our  inquiries  and  our  duties:  Whether  a  nation  can 
prosper  without  a  sound  and  abundant  convertible  cir¬ 
culating  medium?  whether  gold  and  silver  alone  will  be 
sufficient  to  promote  that  prosperity?  and  whether  the 
poor  would  be  benefitted  by  the  destruction  of  all  bank¬ 
ing  institutions?  Not  having  had  time  to  arrange  a  re¬ 
gular  and  sytematized  argument,  I  will  offer  a  few  con¬ 
siderations  in  relation  to  these  several  propositions,  with¬ 
out  speaking  of  each  separately,  and  care  but  little  in 
what  order  I  may  take  them  up,  and  I  may  speak  of 
each  in  conjunction.  No  member  on  this  floor  has  said 
that  there  is  more  than  eighty  millions  of  dollars  in  this 
country  in  gold  and  silver.  The  easiest  way  of  arguing 
this  question  is  by  the  Y ankee  mode  of  asking  a  ques¬ 
tion.  That  question  is,  how  will  the  people  be  enabled  to 
pay  off  all  their  debts,  which  amount  to  many  thousand 
millions,  with  only  eighty  millions  of  specie,  if  you  force 
by  your  policy,  bank  paper  from  circulation?  For  the 
constitution  authorizes  every  creditor  to  exact  specie, 
(if  he  is  unfeeling  enough  to  do  so,)  as  your  law  autho¬ 
rizes  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  to  exact  specie,  when 
the  banks  cease  to  redeem  their  paper. 

We  can  form  some  idea  of  the  amount  of  debts  which 
are  owed  by  the  people,  from  the  president’s  message. 
He  says:  “At  the  commencement  of  the  year  1834,  the 


m 


banking  capital  of  the  United  States,  including  that  of 
the  national  bank  then  existing,  amounted  to  about  two 
hundred  millions  of  dollars;  the  bank  notes  then  in  circu¬ 
lation  to  about  ninety-five  millions;  and  the  loans  and  dis¬ 
counts  of  the  banks  to  three  hundred  and  twenty  four  mil¬ 
lions,  Between  that  time  and  the  first  of  January,  1836, 
being  the  latest  period  to  which  accurate  accounts  have 
been  received,  our  banking  capital  was  increased  to  more 
than  hco  hundred  and  forty-one  millions;  their  paper  cir¬ 
culation  to  more  than  one  hundred  and  forty  millions; 
and  the  loans  and  discounts  to  more  than  four  hundred 
and  forty-seven  millions.  To  this  vast  increase  are  to  be 
added  the  many  millions  of  credit ,  Sfc.  Then,  according 
to  the  president’s  own  showing,  the  people  owe  the  banks 
nearly  eight  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  immense  amount  of  which  is  owing  between  mer¬ 
chant  and  dealer,  between  farmer  and  mechanic;  and 
I  should  not  be  exorbitant,  if  I  were  to  say  it  amounts  to 
at  least  ten  times  that  sum.  Then,  suppose  you  would 
carry  out  your  hard  money  experiment:  what  would  it 
lead  to?  The  government  exacts  its  dues  in  gold  and 
silver,  and  requires  the  deposite  banks  and  the  people  to 
lay  it  in  gold  and  silver;  the  banks  which  have  made 
oans,  as  all  have,  call  on  the  importing  merchants  to  pay 
them  in  gold  and  silver;  the  importing  merchant  calls  on 
the  retailing  merchant  to  pay  him  in  gold  and  silver; 
the  interior  merchant  calls  on  the  farmer,  and  the  farmer 
calls  on  the  mechanic.  Cannot  all  see  the  impossibility 
of  paying  more  than  ten  hundred  millions  of  debts  with 
eighty  millions  of  gold  and  silver?  There  is  not  gold 
enough  in  the  world  to  pay  the  debts  of  the  people  of 
tliis  nation.  But  suppose,  pur-blindly,  you  press  on 
with  your  schemes:  I  ask  any  member  on  this  floor, 
if  any  of  his  constituents  were  to  owe  a  debt,  say  one 
thousand  dollars,  and  be  possessed  of  property  to  the 
amount  of  ten  thousand  dollars,  if  it  would  not  require 
the  whole  property  he  possessed,  if  it  were  to  become  a 
general  policy  to  pay  in  gold  and  silver,  to  sell  for  one 
thousand  dollars.  So  far  from  this  policy  having  the 
tendency  to  benefit  the  poor,  it  will,  in  its  results,  if  it  be 
not  arrested,  make  the  rich  poor;  and  the  poor  man,  who 
is  forced  to  pay  all  his  debts  in  gold  and  silver,  will  find 
himself  beggared,  if  not  incarcerated  in  the  jail  of  his 
county.  That  is  the  paradise  of  suffering  and  misery, 
which  such  a  measure  will  lead  him  to;  and  if  he  follows 
such  counsellors  as  we  have  had  for  the  last  three  years, 
he  should  prepare  his  mind  and  body  to  endure  penury 
and  suffering.  “It  is  in  those  countries,”  says  an  able 
writer,  “only,  where  labor  is  well  rewarded ,  and  where 
the  mass  of  the  people  are  placed  in  a  situation  to  accu¬ 
mulate  wealth ,  that  they  acquire  a  slake  in  the  hedge ,  and 
are,  in  consequence,  made  to  feel  a  direct  personal  in¬ 
terest  in  the  support  of  all  those  great  fundamental  prin¬ 
ciples  essential  to  the  existence  of  society,  which  they 
otherwise  regard  either  with  indifference  or  aversion, 
and  which  the  slightest  provocation  is  sufficient  to  in¬ 
duce  them  to  attack.” 

But  these  statesmen,  who  ride  in  their  English  car¬ 
riages  with  white  servants  in  livery,  who  all  feed  upon 
the  public  crib,  say  that  the  people  are  too  voluptuous, 
they  have  too  many  luxuries,  that  they  are  too  extrava¬ 
gant,  and  that  their  rulers  are  determined  to  bring  them 
down  to  primeval  simplicity;  that  they  must  be  brought 
down  to  the  economy  of  the  pastoral  ages,  and  republi¬ 
can  simplicity,  which  we  read  of  in  books  of  olden 
times;  to  the  hard-money  days  of  Lycurgus,  when  a  man 
was  regarded  as  a  patriot,  if  he  not  only  would  covet, 
but  if  he  would  steal  his  neighbor’s  property,  without 
being  detected  in  the  theft — when  their  bread  was  made 
of  acorns,  and  the  skins  of  wild  beasts  furnished  them 
with  raiment.  Or  are  we  to  be  brought  down  to  later 
days,  the  days  when  cocoa  seeds  were  received  in  pari 
of  South  America  for  a  currency?  That  had  more 
plausibility  about  it,  for  the  holder  of  that  currency  could 
convert  it  into  an  article  of  food,  which  was  no  small 
improvement  upon  Lycurgus’s  system. 

Example  has  no  more  effect  than  precept;  and  he 
who  wishes  to  reform  society  must  first  reform  himself; 
and  if  the  president  and  his  secretary  would  start  the 


fashion,  they  might  advise  with  better  hope  of  success. 
Let  the  president  dress  himself  in  sackcloth,  and  his  se¬ 
cretary  in  the  skins  of  wild  beasts,  or  borrow  a  dress 
from  Keokuck  or  Black  Hawk,  who  are  now  in  the  city, 
and  start  out  as  missionaries  to  proselyte  the  people,  and 
they  will  soon  find  how  many  converts  they  will  make. 
The  first  district  which  they  would  enter  would  be  the 
district  which  I  have  the  honor  to  represent  on  this  floor. 
Let  them  approach  some  settlement  of  industrious 
Friends,  or  German  farmers — the  former  they  would 
first  reach  in  about  ten  miles  from  this  place.  The  presi¬ 
dent  would  enlarge  upon  the  advantages  of  his  new  sys¬ 
tem,  and  finally  hand  the  listening  crowd  over  to  his  faith¬ 
ful  squire,  who  would  show,  by  statistics,  what  would 
be  saved  to  the  nation,  if  no  luxuries  were  imported  from 
abroad,  and  how  much  less  their  merchants’  and  tai¬ 
lors’  bills  would  be  if  they  adopted  his  attire — to  banish 
broadcloth  coats  and  merino  shawls.  We  can  well 
conjecture,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  the  women,  if  they  said 
nothing,  would  look  inexpressible  things.  And  I  can 
imagine  some  such  man  as  Roger  Brook,  a  resident  of 
Montgomery,  who  is  a  man  of  reading  and  a  wit,  reply¬ 
ing  to  the  president,  and  saying  that  his  costume  and 
the  secretary’s  were  unique  and  peculiar;  that  he  be¬ 
longed  to  a  society  that  but  seldom  changed  good  habits; 
that  he  liked  to  read  of  such  attire  in  the  Bible,  fcut  could 
not  say  that  he  was  at  that  moment  prepared  to  adopt  it. 
Although  they  are  remarkable  for  treating  both  invited 
and  stranger  guests  with  great  hospitality,  he  would 
play  off  Van  Burenism  upon  Van  himself;  and  say  to 
him,  as  a  delinquent  debtor  once  said  to  a  dunning  cre¬ 
ditor,  friend,  call  next  week,  and  - then  I  will  tell 

you  when  you  can  call  again. 

But  we  have  had  some  of  diese  currencies  in  our  own 
country,  or  something  very  much  like  them.  I-n  the  de¬ 
mocratic  simplicity  of  the  trappers  of  the  Rocky  moun¬ 
tains  at  this  time,  they  use  pelt  instead  of  bank  notes, 
and  pay  their  debts  in  the  skins  of  beavers,  otter,  or  rac- 
koons.  Before  the  purchase  of  Louisiana,  and  until 
1804,  deer  skins  were  a  legal  tender,  by  the  laws  of  all 
Upper  Louisiana,  at  forty  cents  a  pound.  Our  forefathers, 
in  their  republican  simplicity,  made  fish  oil,  cotton,  and 
tobacco,  a  legal  tender;  and  you  cannot  now  open  an 
old  statute  book,  of  either  Virginia  or  Maryland,  that  has 
not  tobacco  so  often  written  in  it,  that  it  really  smells  of 
the  indigenous  weed.  In  Maryland,  by  the  law  of  1732, 
tobacco  was  made  a  legal  tender  at  a  penny  a  pound, 
and  Indian  corn  at  twenty  pence  a  bushel.  Whilst  in 
Virginia,  in  1618,  tobacco  was  made  a  legal  tender  at 
3s.  per  pound;  and,  in  1620,  the  “young”  and  beautiful 
“women  who  were  shipped  by  the  Virginia  company 
in  England  to  that-  colony  to  be  married  to  the  residents, 
the  price  on  each  was  a  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco, 
though,  when  the  article  was  scarce,  as  much  as  a  hun¬ 
dred  and  fifty  pounds  was  paid.” 

This  ldnd  of  currency  is  very  elegantly  described  in 
the  sixteenth  number  of  Salmagundi,  where  it  represents 
that  “the  lady  of  a  southern  planter  will  lay  out  the 
whole  annual  produce  of  a  rice  plantation  in  silver  and 
in  gold  muslins,  lace  veils,  and  new  liveries;  carry  a  hogs¬ 
head  of  tobacco  on  her  head,  and  trail  a  bale  of  sea  island 
cotton  at  her  heels;  while  a  lady  of  Boston  or  Salem 
will  wrap  herself  up  in  the  nett  proceeds  of  a  cargo  of 
whale  oil,  and  tie  on  her  hat  with  a  quintal  of  codfish!” 
I  do  not  believe  that  any  of  my  constituents  wish  to  go 
back  to  the  tobacco  experiment  of  their  ancestors;  many 
of  them  raise  most  excellent  tobacco,  and  some  like  to 
exhilarate  their  senses  with  it;  but  none,  I  believe,  are 
anxious  to  have  their  dues  paid  in  it;  they  would  prefer 
the  miserable  currency  which  you  have  now  afflicted 
them  with.  I  know  by  how  frail  a  tenure  I  hold  the  at¬ 
tention  of  the  committee;  but  as  it  has  favored  me  with 
its  attention,  I  am  emboldened  to  proceed  a  little  further, 
and  will  attempt  to  illustrate  the  positions  loosely  thrown 
out  in  my  remarks — the  necessity  of  the  government  to 
establish,  by  wise  regulations,  a  currency  for  the  people; 
and  the  absolute  impossibility  of  the  advance  of  this  na¬ 
tion  in  its  usual  and  rapid  strides  to  wealth,  to  greatness, 
and  to  power,  without  an  abundant  and  good  currency. 


17 


1  will  not  go  into  a  discussion  of  metaphysics  and  ab¬ 
stractions,  as  one  half  of  the  political  economists  do,  who 
write  long  and  labored  books,  to  find  out  whether  gold 
arid  silver  is  properly  money  or  not;  whether  it  is  a  mer¬ 
chantable  commodity,  and  ought  to  be  sold  as  any  other 
production  of  labor;  whether  bank  paper  is  a  good  and  safe 
representative  of  value,  or  whether  it  may  be  worn  out 
and  more  quickly  consumed  than  the  precious  metals. — 
I  will  leave  these  discussions  to  those  who  have  a  taste 
for  them.  I  am  in  the  congress  of  the  United  States, 
and  feel  that  it  is  my  duty  to  act  upon  circumstances 
around  me;  to  look  at  the  past,  and  try  to  do  the  best  I 
can  for  the  future.  Close  refinements  may  suit  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  the  learned  lawyer,  and  abstract  metaphysics 
may  suit  the  man  of  recondite  lore;  but  practical  utility, 
I  think,  will  best  suit  an  American  legislator. 

-  I  will  take  the  liberty  of  reading  an  extract  or  two 
from  a  little  volume  I  hold  in  my  hand.  It  is  about  half 
the  size  of  the  report  of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury,  and 
contains,  in  my  poor  judgment,  more  sound  maxims  of 
usefulness  to  the  laboring  class  than  all  the  messages  and 
reports,  and  speeches  too,  which  have  been  written  by 
the  presidents  and  secretaries,  and  their  friends,  for  the 
last  four  years.  I  am  sorry  to  discover  that  it  is  not  to 
be  found  in  any  of  the  libraries  in  this  capitol;  and  whilst 
I  am  making  a  miscellaneous  speech,  I  will  use  this  oc¬ 
casion  to  say  that  I  am  sorry  for  the  American  taste, 
that  they  buy  up  every  large  volume  of  romance  that  is 
published,  whilst  pamphlets  of  solid  information  are 
neglected.  In  England  it  is  different;  nothing  is  quick¬ 
er  bought  and  read  there  than  political  essays  and  statis¬ 
tical  tracts.  We  have  not  a  taste  for  statistics,  and  nothing 
is  more  important  for  a  public  man.  The  volume  which 
I  will  read  from  is  one  that  was  sent  to  me  by  a  travel¬ 
led  friend  from  Edinburgh.  It  was  written  by  J.  R. 
McCullough,  and  is  entitled  “An  Essay  on  the  circum¬ 
stances  which  determine  the  rate  of  wages,  and  the  con¬ 
dition  of  the  laboring  classes.”  The  first  section  is  head¬ 
ed,  “rate  of  wages  in  any  given  country  at  any  particu¬ 
lar  period,  determined  on  the  magnitude  of  the  fund  or 
capital  appropriated  to  the  payment  of  wages,  compared 
with  the  number  of  laborers.”  He  says,  “the  capital  of 
a  country  consists  of  all  that  portion  of  produce  of  indus¬ 
try  existing  in  it  which  can  be  made  directly  available, 
either  to  the  support  of  human  existence,  or  to-the  facili¬ 
tating  of  production.  But  the  portion  of  capital  to  which 
it  is  now  necessary  to  advert  consists  of  the  food,  clothes, 
and  other  articles  required  for  the  use  and  consumption 
of  the  laborer.  This  portion  forms  the  fund  out  of  which 
their  wages  must  be  wholly  paid.  We  shall  err  if  we 
suppose  that  the  capital  of  a  country  depends  on  advan¬ 
tageousness  of  situation,  richness  of  soil,  or  extent  of 
territory.  These,  undoubtedly,  are  circumstances  of 
very  great  importance,  and  must  have  a  powerful  influ¬ 
ence  in  determining  the  rate  at  which  a  people  advance 
in  the  career  of  wealth  and  civilization.  But  it  is  obvi¬ 
ously  not  on  these  circumstances,  but  on  the  actual 
amount  of  the  accumulated  produce  of  previous  labor,  or 
of  capital  devoted  to  the  payment  of  wages ,  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  a  country,  at  any  given  period,  that  its  power  of 
supporting  and  employing  laborers  must  entirely  depend. 
A  fertile  soil  affords  the  means  of  rapidly  increasing 
capital;  but  that  is  not  all.  Before  that  soil  can  be  cul¬ 
tivated,  capital  must  be  provided  for  the  support  of  the 
laborers  employed  upon  it,  just  as  it  must  be  by  provid¬ 
ing  for  the  support  of  those  engaged  in  manufactures,  or 
in  any  other  department  of  industry. 

“It  is  a  necessary  consequence  to  this  principle,  that  the 
amount  of  subsistence  falling  to  each  laborer,  or  the  rate 
of  wages,  must  depend  on  the  proportion  which  the 
whole  capital  bears  to  the  whole  amount  of  the  laboring 
population.  If  the  amount  of  capital  is  increased,  with¬ 
out  a  corresponding  increase  taking  place  in  the  popu¬ 
lation,  a  larger  share  of  such  capital  will  fall  to  each  in¬ 
dividual,  or  the  rate  of  wages  will  be  increased.  And 
if,  on  the  other  hand,  population  is  increased  faster  than 
capital,  a  less  share  will  be  appropriated  to  each  indivi¬ 
dual,  or  the  rate  of  wages  will  be  reduced.” 

“So  long  as  capital  and  population  continue  to  march 


abreast,  or  to  increase  or  diminish  in  the  same  proportion, 
so  long  will  the  rate  of  wages,  and  consequently  the  con¬ 
dition  of  the  laborers,  continue  unaffected;  and  it  is  only 
when  the  proportion  of  capital  to  population  varies, 
when  it  is  either  increased  or  diminished,  that  the  rate 
of  wages  sustains  a  corresponding  advance  or  diminu¬ 
tion.  The  well-being  and  comfort  of  the  laboring  classes 
are,  therefore,  essentially  dependant  on  the  relation 
which  their  increase  bears  to  the  increase  of  the  capital 
that  is  to  feed  and  employ  them.  If  they  increase  faster 
than  capital,  their  wages  will  be  reduced;  and  if  they  in¬ 
crease  slower,  they  will  be  augmented.  In  fact,  there 
are  no  means  whatever  by  which  the  command  of  the  labor¬ 
ing  class  over  the  necessaries  and  conveniences  of  life  can 
be  enlarged ,  other  than  by  accelerating  the  increase  of  capi¬ 
tal  as  compared  with  population ,  or  by  retarding  the  in¬ 
crease  of  population  as  compared  with  capital;  and  every 
scheme  of  improving  the  condition  of  the  laborer,  which 
is  not  bottomed  on  this  principle,  or  which  has  not  an  in¬ 
crease  of  the  ratio  of  capital  to  population  for  its  object , 
must  be  completely  nugatory  and  ineffectual. ” 

Such  are  the  views,  not  of  a  man  who  wishes  to  be 
returned  to  congress  upon  some  popular  prejudice,  who 
aspires  to  a  secretaryship,  or  a  foreign  mission,  or  to  the 
presidency,  but  one  who  writes  for  the  benefit  of  man¬ 
kind,  and  is  willing  to  meet  |his  reward  in  the  approba¬ 
tion  of  a  benefitted  and  grateful  posterity.  If  I  may  ven¬ 
ture  to  illustrate  his  views,  in  this  country  we  have  now 
some  eight  or  ten  hundred  millions  jof  circulating  me¬ 
dium,  which  is  received,  and  gladly  received,  by  all  who 
have  debts  to  collect,  as  money.  If  you  adopt  the  ad¬ 
vice  offered,  and  destroy  our  banking  institution^,  you 
reduce  the  circulating  medium  to  the  amount  of  the 
specie  in  the  nation,  which  has  been  computed  at  eighty 
millions;  but  I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  much  more  than 
half  that  amount.  Then  you  will  have  a  currency  or 
circulating  medium  which,  if  you  were  to  divide  it 
among  the  people,  would  give  each  individual  some 
three  or  four  dollars.  The  effect  would  be,  that  those 
who  work  for  a  dollar  a  day  now,  would  have  their 
wages  reduced  to  some  ten  or  twelve  cents  per  day;  for 
instead  of  increasing  the  capital  with  the  increase  of  the 
population,  you  reduce  the  capital  to  about  five  per  cent, 
of  what  it  is  now,  whilst  the  population  of  the  country 
increases  about  five  per  cent,  every  year.  Or  you  would 
have  to  raise  the  value  of  money  more  than  a  thousand 
per  cent.,  and  say  that  a  dime  shall  in  future  pass  for  a 
dollar — an  eagle  for  a  hundred  dollars.  I  will  read  ano¬ 
ther  extract  from  his  second  chapter,  exhibiting  the 
“comparative  increase  of  capital  and  population.”  “It 
is  not  possible  to  obtain,”  he  says,  “any  precisely  accu¬ 
rate  estimate  of  the  absolute  quantity  of  capital  in  a  coun¬ 
try  at  different  periods;  but  the  capacity  of  that  capital 
to  feed  and  employ  laborers,  and  the  rate  of  its  increase, 
may,  notwithstanding,  be  learned  with  sufficient  accu¬ 
racy  for  our  purpose,  by  referring  to  the  progress  of  po¬ 
pulation.  It  is  clear,  from  the  statements  already  made, 
that  the  inhabitants  of  a  country,  supposng  them  to  have 
the  same,  or  about  the  same,  command  of  the  necessa¬ 
ries  and  conveniences  of  life,  cannot  increase  without  a 
corresponding  increase  of  capital.  Whenever,  therefore, 
we  find  the  people  of  a  country  increasing  without  any, 
or  with  but  very  little,  variation  taking  place  in  their 
condition,  we  may  conclude  that  the  capital  of  the  coun¬ 
try  is  increasing  in  the  same,  or  very  near  the  same  pro¬ 
portion.  Now,  it  has  been  established  beyond  all  ques¬ 
tion,  that  the  population  of  several  of  the  states  of  North 
America  has,  after  making  due  allowance  for  immi¬ 
grants,  continued  to  double,  for  a  century  past,  in  so 
short  a  period  as  twenty,  or  at  most  twenty-five  years; 
and  as  the  quantity  of  necessaries  and  conveniences 
falling  to  the  share  of  an  inhabitant  of  the  United  States 
has  not  been  materially  increased  or  diminished  during 
the  last  century,  this  increase  of  population  is  a  proof 
that  the  capital  of  the  country  has  advanced  in  a  cor¬ 
responding  ratio.  But  in  all  old  settled  countries,  the 
increase  of  capital,  and  consequently  of  population,  is 
much  slower.  The  population  of  Scotland,  for  example, 
•e  supposed  to  have  amounted  to  1,050,000  in  1700;  and 


18 


as  it  amounted  to  2,135,000  in  1820,  it  would  follow,  on 
the  principle  already  stated,  that  the  capital  of  the  coun¬ 
try  had  required  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  years 
to  double.  In  like  manner,  the  population  of  England 
and  Wales  amounted  to  6,064,000  in  1740,  and  to 
12,256,000  in  1821,  showing  that  the  population,  and, 
therefore,  the  capital,  of  that  country  applicable  to  the 
support  of  man,  or  the  supply  of  food,  clothes,  and  other 
articles  necessary  for  the  support  of  human  life,  had 
doubled  in  about  eighty  years.” 

“The  effects  which  the  different  rates  at  which  capi¬ 
tal  and  population  advance  in  different  countries  have 
on  the  condition  of  their  inhabitants,  may  be  exemplified 
in  a  very  striking  manner  by  comparing  the  rate  of  in¬ 
crease  and  the  actual  state  of  the  people  of  Great  Bri¬ 
tain,  with  the  rate  of  increase  and  the  actual  state  of  the 
people  of  Ireland.  It  is  certainly  true  that  there  has  been 
a  considerable  increase  in  the  capital  of  Ireland  during 
the  last  hundred  years;  though  no  one  in  the  least  ac¬ 
quainted  with  the  progress  of  the  different  parts  of  the 
empire  has  ever  supposed  that  this  increase  has  borne 
the  proportion  either  of  a  third ,  or  even  a  fourth ,  to  the 
increase  of  capital  in  England  and  Scodand  during  the 
same  period.  But  the  increase  of  population  in  Ireland, 
as  compared  with  its  increase  in  Britain,  has  been  wide¬ 
ly  different  from  the  increase  in  the  capital  of  the  two 
countries,  or  in  their  means  of  employing  people,  sup¬ 
porting  them  in  a  state  of  comfort  and  respectability. 
According  to  the  tables  given  in  the  parliamentary  re¬ 
ports,  the  population  of  Great  Britain  amounted,  in  1720, 
to  6,955,000,  and  in  1821  it  amounted  to  14,391,000,  hav¬ 
ing  a  little  more  than  doubled  in  the  course  of  the  cen¬ 
tury;  while,  from  the  same  reports,  it  appears  that  the 
population  of  Ireland,  whose  capital  had  increased  in  so 
inferior  a  proportion  to  that  of  Britain,  amounted  to  very 
little  more  than  two  millions  in  1731,  and  to  very  near 
seven  millions  in  1821;  having  nearly  quadrupled  in  less 
time  than  the  population  of  Britain  took  to  double !”  He 
further  says:  “all  the  witnesses  examined  by  the  com¬ 
mittee  of  the  house  of  commons,  on  ''the  employment  of 
the  poor  of  Ireland,'  in  1823,  concur  in  representing  their 
numbers  as  excessive,  and  their  condition  as  wretched 
in  the  extreme.  Their  cabins,  which  are  of  the  most  mis¬ 
erable  description,  are  utterly  unprovided  with  anything 
that  can  be  called  furniture.  In  many  families  there 
are  no  such  things  as  bed  clothes.  The  children,  in  ex¬ 
tensive  districts  of  Munster  and  the  other  provinces, 
have  not  a  single  rag  to  cover  their  nakedness;  and, 
whenever  the  potato  crop  becomes  even  in  a  slight  de¬ 
gree  deficient,  the  scourge  of  famine  and  disease  is  felt 
in  every  corner  of  the  country.  -The  right  honorable 
Maurice  Fitzgerald,  M.  P.,  mentions  that  ‘he  had  known 
the  peasantry  of  Kerry  quit  their  houses  in  search  of 
employment,  offering  to  work  for  the  meanest  subsist¬ 
ence  that  could  be  obtained,  for  two  pence  a  day;  in 
short,  for  any  things  that  would  purchase  food  enough 
to  keep  them  alive  for  the  ensuing  twenty-four  hours.’  ” 

I  will  read  but  one  line  more,  and  then  lay  down 
this  useful  volume.  He  says,  “  that  while  the  average 
market  price  of  a  day’s  labor  in  England  may  be 
taken  at  from  20 d.  to  2s.,  it  cannot  be  taken  at  more  than 
5 d.  in  Ireland.” 

These  undoubted  historical  facts  are  so  conclusive  to 
my  mind,  that  I  will  not  attempt  to  enlarge  upon  what 
seems  so  convincing  to  the  reflecting  understanding, 
further  than  to  say  that  they  first  convince  us  that  you 
are  not  to  judge  of  the  prosperity  of  a  nation  by  its  rapid 
increase  of  population;  but  if  capital  does  not  advance 
side  by  side  with  population,  misery  and  poverty  will  be 
the  inevitable  consequence,  and  that  the  poor  will  be 
the  first  and  most  numerous  sufferers;  that  capital  ad¬ 
vanced  in  England  with  its  population,  and  wealth  and 
comfort  followed  in  its  train;  population  rapidly  increas¬ 
ed  in  Ireland,  whilst  capital  lagged  behind,  and  misery 
and  wretchedness  now  scourge  that  people.  Then 
carry  out  the  president’s  views,  and  those  of  his  secre¬ 
tary:  after  first  destroying  the  United  States  bank,  then 
destroying  the  state  banks,  by  your  bankrupt  scheme; 
destroy  capital;  destroy  credit,  which  the  president 


says  has  been  carried  too  far,  and  should  be  checked. 
Do  all  this,  and  the  poor  man  sees  his  fate  read  in  the 
history  of  Ireland.  Their  distresses  are  great  beyond 
description;  their  means  of  support  the  most  scanty; 
and  the  Irishman  said  truly,  as  he  said  wittily,  that 
the  first  mouthful  of  bread  he  ever  ate  was  a  potato; 
es,  sir,  the  potato  is  his  meat  and  his  bread,  and  often 
e  is  without  it.  Carry  out  your  system,  and  the 
cheapest  food,  which  is  the  potato,  wifi  be  that  which 
the  poor  of  this  country  will  be  forced  to  live  upon. 
They  will  not  be  able  to  buy  a  barrel  of  flour  or  a  bar¬ 
rel  of  pork. 

Bank  credit,  individual  confidence,  and  the  credit 
system,  have  been  the  chief  currency  of  our  nation  for 
fifty  years.  Never  has  any  nation  prospered  as  this 
nation  has  in  so  short  a  period.  But  now  the  president 
tells  us  and  the  people,  that  the  government  must  cut 
loose  from  the  community;  that  they  have  been  trading 
on  borrowed  capital;  ana  have  carried  the  credit  sys¬ 
tem  too  far.  Such  language  would  be  ungenerous 
from  that  source,  if  in  all  respects  true.  Who  did  most 
to  adopt  measures  which  brought  about  these  results? 
You  destroyed  the  United  States  bank,  and  at  least 
tacitly  invited  the  states  to  fill  the  vacuum  of  that  insti¬ 
tution  by  making  banks  of  their  own.  You  told  these 
state  banks  to  discount  liberally.  The  people,  believ¬ 
ing  that  all  was  true  which  you  told  them,  increased 
their  business:  the  farmer  bought  more  land,  the  me¬ 
chanic  employed  more  journeymen.  Each  went  in 
debt,  believing  if  your  promises  of  a  better  currency 
would  be  realized,  that  he  could  not  only  meet  his  lia¬ 
bilities,  but  enlarge  his  means.  Your  promises  were 
not  realized;  and  now  he  meets  with  executive  denun¬ 
ciation  for  trusting  to  that  very  executive.  Is  not  this 
ungenerous?  Is  it  not  cruel?  It  is  a  very  refinement 
in  cruelty,  which  a  fallen  angel  might  envy. 

The  president,  in  his  message,  has  written,  as  I  have 
spoken,  about  a  great  many  things;  among  others,  he 
tells  us  that  England  has  overtraded,  and  all  Europe 
felt  embarrassments  as  we  feel  them. 

It  is  often  true,  (and  the  president’s  message  proves 
it,)  as  Lord  Brougham  has  well  said,  that  philosophers 
have  been  led  into  an  error,  not  uncommon  in  many  of 
the  departments  of  science,  and  in  none  more  frequent 
than  in  politics — the  mistake  of  the  occasion  for  the 
cause,  and  of  a  collateral  effect  for  a  principle  of  causa¬ 
tion.  Sir,  it  is  true  that  there  have  been,  and  are,  em¬ 
barrassments  in  the  moneyed  arrangements  of  Europe; 
but  did  it  originate  there?  No,  sir.  I  have  an  interest¬ 
ing  pamphlet  before  me,  written  very  recently,  and 
translated  from  the  French,  which  I  cannot  trespass 
upon  the  time  of  the  committee  to  read  extracts  from. 
But  it  shows,  by  the  most  conclusive  demonstration, 
that  the  first  cause  of  our  distresses  was  the  warfare 
upon  the  bank  and  the  currency  by  general  Jackson  in 
this  country;  and  that  so  clearly  allied  is  the  whole 
commercial  world  with  this  nation,  that  embarrass¬ 
ments  in  this  country  are  felt,  and  will  be,  in  a  greater 
or  less  degree,  by  every  power  of ’Europe  with  whom 
we  trade.  Civilization  and  commerce  have  made  the 
human  family,  so  far  as  trade  is  concerned,  as  one  peo¬ 
ple,  and  you  cannot  derange  the  interest  of  one  without 
affecting  the  business  of  all. 

This  connexion  and  this  dependance  have  been  the 
result  of  the  credit  system,  which  has  been  so  much  de¬ 
nounced,  and  which  has  been  enlarged  upon  in  the 
executive  message.  I  have  listened  to  speeches  on  this 
floor,  in  which  whole  pages  of  the  gouge  plan  have 
been  adopted;  yes,  sir,  the  whole  anti-bank  plan.  The 
little  states  of  the  Germanic  provinces  have  been  al¬ 
luded  to,  to  show  that  by  individual  banks  the  interest 
of  the  people  and  the  nation  could  be  promoted.  Sir, 
statesmen  and  political  economists  run  into  error  in  re¬ 
ceiving  the  theories  of  abstract  writers.  Practical 
udgment  knows  how  to  receive  or  to  eschew  maxims 
of  writers  which  apply  to  a  particular  nation  in  a  par¬ 
ticular  condition.  The  provinces  of  Germany  are  small; 
the  line  of  business  is  defined.  Our  nation  is  as  yet 
new,  and  immensely  expansive.  What  may  be  wise 


in  a  little  state  in  the  centre  of  Europe,  may  not  be 
wise  in  a  large  state  in  an  immense  hemisphere. 

But  I  deny  that  any  of  the  Germanic  provinces  have 
gained  their  wealth  or  their  prosperity  by  the  simple 
gold  money  system,  by  excluding  the  whole  founda¬ 
tions  of  the  credit  system.  And,  in  support  of  this 
opinion  I  will  read  one  sentence  from  the  first  volume 
of  Lord  Brougham’s  admirable  work  on  the  colonial 
policy  of  European  nations:  “  credit  has  contributed  to 
the  astonishing  increase  of  the  Dutch  settlements,  so 
much  wanted  in  all  other  colonies.”  To  sustain  this 
opinion,  I  will  read  an  extract  from  Thornton  on  paper 
credit,  showing  that  paper  credit  has  been  a  great 
cause  of  the  prosperity  of  Holland.  He  says  “the 
extent  of  the  circulating  medium  of  Holland  is  deserv¬ 
ing  of  notice.  Besides  the  great  circulation  of  bank 
notes  and  receipts,  government  paper  and  bills  of  ex¬ 
change,  (which  latter  are  without  doubt  a  part  of  the 
circulating  paper  of  every  trading  country,  although 
they  circulate  more  slowly  than  the  other  parts,)  the 
system  of  colonial  credit  must  have  always  thrown  into 
the  market  a  very  large  portion  of  circulating  paper.” 
Then,  sir,  when  it  is  thus  shown  that  the  Germanic 
states  and  Holland  owe  their  prosperity  to  the  paper 
system  and  to  credit,  they  will  no  longer  be  quoted 
against  both. 

If  there  is  one  man  on  earth  who  knows  when  to 
use  the  credit  system,  it  is  a  German,  whether  he  is  in 
Europe  or  America;  because  he  is  a  close  calculator  of 
number  one.  If  he  finds,  after  making  his  estimates, 
that  he  can  easily  repay,  he  will  then  borrow  money  at 
six  per  cent.,  when  he  has  convinced  his  mind  that  he 
wi’l  make  eight,  or  ten,  or  twelve,  upon  its  judicious 
use.  They  do  not  want  the  executive,  or  any  one  else, 
to  tell  them  how  to  make  their  estimates;  they  are  the 
safest  calculators  in  the  world.  i 

Some  gentlemen  here,  from  the  south,  have  advocated 
this  measure  and  the  views  of  the  executive — to  destroy 
the  banking  system  of  our  country,  to  disconnect  go¬ 
vernment  from  the  banks,  and  to  restrain  the  credit 
policy  of  the  nation.  I  have,  it  is  true,  travelled  much 
through  the  south,  the  west,  and  the  north.  I  have 
read  mnch  of  all,  and  reflected  anxiously  on  their  sepa¬ 
rate  and  blended  interests;  still  I  do  not  feel  sufficient 
confidenoe  in  myself  to  dissent  too  rashly  from  some  of 
the  opinions  which  I  have  heard  of  members,  who  take, 
with  an  air  of  confidence,  the  interests  of  their  respec¬ 
tive  regions  of  the  country  under  their  own  protection. 
7  cannot,  however,  restrain  the  expression  of  my  doubts 
that  the  interest  of  the  south  will  be  promoted  by  these 
measures.  I  honestly  believe  that  there  is  no  part  of 
the  union  where  capital  is  in  such  demand,  and  credit 
so  much  required,  as  in  the  south — the  cotton-growing 
regions.  It  may  be  true  that,  in  some  of  the  old 
southern  states — in  South  Carolina,  for  instance,  where 
capital  is  somewhat  fixed  and  established — those  who 
receive  large  patrimonial  possessions,  with  hands  upon 
them  to  work  them,  and  money  to  carry  them  on,  may 
do  well  in  any  vicissitude  of  our  policy,  but  less  advan¬ 
tageously  upon  the  new  than  the  old  system.  But  even 
that  favored  portion  of  the  population  of  the  states  of 
the  south  is  comparatively  but  a  small  portion.  The 
great  mass  of  the  cotton-growers  are  men  who  have 
moderate  means,  and  are  forced  to  extend  their  credit. 
They  may  have  a  few  thousand  dollars  and  a  few  ne¬ 
groes.  After  they  shall  have  purchased  a  plantation, 
they  will  find  their  funds  are  exhausted,  and  that  they 
must  resort  to  credit  to  get  their  establishment  into 
profitable  operation;  and  this  is  more  especially  the 
case  of  the  southwestern  states.  An  editor  in  Missis¬ 
sippi  some  time  ago  said  that  that  state  did  not  owe  less 
than  ten  millions  of  dollars  for  negroes;  in  other  words, 
for  laboring  capital.  Now  require  that  state  to  pay  ten 
millions  in  specie,  and  you  would  have  to  sell  at  least  one 
fourth  of  the  state  to  make  the  amount;  and  that  is  the 
most  extensive  cotton-growing  state  in  the  southern 
country. 

Sir,  I  maintain  that  this  very  productive  labor,  as  it 
has  been  called — the  slave  labor  of  the  south — is  strict¬ 


ly  and  truly  more  of  capital  than  labor.  I  could  quote 
lord  Brougham,  and  the  reasoning  of  senator  Tracy, 
to  sustain  the  opinion,  but  I  will  not  read  from  either; 
for  I  have  not  time  to  discuss  it  before  this  almost  ex¬ 
hausted  committee;  nor  is  it  important  for  my  present 
purpose.  But,  to  come  to  the  middle,  the  grain-grow¬ 
ing  and  agricultural  states;  how  few  of  the  number  of 
their  inhabitants  have  been  left  farms,  and  utensils,  and 
money,  sufficient  to  carry  on  the  whole  of  the  parapher¬ 
nalia  of  farming  operations?  Nine  out  of  ten  have  to 
purchase  farms,  and  to  gain  credit  for  their  personal  pro¬ 
perty,  in  order  to  carry  them  on  with  prosperity.  “A 
farm,”  says  senator  Tracy,  “is  a  real  manufactory:”  “a 
field  is  a  real  utensil,  or,  if  you  please,  a  store  of  first 
materials;”  to  set  it  into  profitable  motion,  you  must 
have  capital,  or  credit  to  gain  capital,  in  order  to  make 
it  useful  or  profitable. 

But  if  we  were,  as  it  is  our  duty,  to  turn  our  eyes  and 
inquiry  farther  north,  where  manufactures  and  farming 
go  hand  in  hand  together:  a  manufacturer  builds  his 
factory,  but  finds  that  his  ability  will  not  be  sufficient 
to  purchase  all  of  the  raw  material  to  be  worked  up 
into  useful  and  profitable  fabrics.  He  must  either  gain 
credit,  or  at  once  dismiss  his  hands,  and  abandon  his 
useful  enterprise;  these  hands  must  work  in  some 
other  and  new  employment,  for  a  quarter  of  a  dollar  a 
day,  instead  of  gaining  a  dollar,  if  the  head  of  the  fac¬ 
tory  could  have  obtained  credit.  Thus,  your  system 
will  prostrate  the  man  of  some  capital,  and  throw  out 
of  employment  the  man  who  has  but  a  useful  trade. 

But  how  can  you  carry  on  commerce  between  man 
and  man  without  a  sound  convertible  currency,  with¬ 
out  immense  loss  to  both  the  consumer  and  producer? 
Tracy  has  truly  said  that  “commerce  and  society  are 
one  and  the  same  thing;”  he  has  said  in  another  place, 
“commerce  is  the  whole  of  society,  as  labor  is  the 
whole  of  riches.”  The  internal  commerce  among  the 
states  and  the  people  of  the  states  is  vastly  greater  than 
its  foreign  commerce,  and  requires  some  circulating 
medium  to  represent  value.  There  is  not  gold  and  sil¬ 
ver  enough  for  this  purpose:  then  you  are  forced  to 
have  either  a  convertible  or  inconvertible  paper  curren¬ 
cy,  or  make  the  productions  of  labor  a  currency.  You 
had  a  convertible  paper  currency,  the  best  in  the  world, 
and  the  nation  was  happy  and  prosperous.  You 
taught  the  people  to  be  dissatisfied  with  it,  and  to  aid 
you  in  destroying  it;  and  they  are  now  afflicted  with 
an  inconvertible  depreciating  currency.  To  restore 
the  former  prosperity,  you  must  restore  the  former  cur¬ 
rency. 

You  tell  the  people  to  banish  from  use  small  notes; 
and  your  measures  force  the  people  to  countenance 
their  existence.  We  had  a  good  currency  in  Maryland 
a  few  years  ago.  That  state  prohibited  the  circulation 
of  notes  under  five  dollars,  and  I  believe  but  one  bank 
under  their  charters  could  issue  notes  of  a  less  denomi¬ 
nation.  Public  necessity  has  been  made  paramount 
to  the  law  and  the  policy  of  the  state,  and  every  corpo¬ 
ration,  and  almost  every  individual  in  business,  feels 
himself  authorized  to  become  a  banker,  and  to  fill  the 
state  with  notes  of  the  fractional  parts  of  a  dollar.  This 
was  the  case  in  all  the  states,  as  now,  when  the  first 
Bank  of  the  United  States  was  destroyed.  I  have  in 
my  possession  a  relic  of  those  days — a  note  of  the  de¬ 
nomination  of  “ten  cents,”  which  a  friend  sent  me 
from  Virginia,  on  the  “Farmers,  Mechanics,  and 
Merchants’  bank”  of  “Charlestown,  Jefferson  county, 
Virginia;”  issued  “November  2d,  1815,”  and  signed 
“Wm.  Brown,  cashier.”  I  have  another  precious  relic 
of  past  days,  when  there  was  no  United  States  bank. 
It  is  printed  on  coarse,  stiff  paper,  and  designates  “No. 
27,418”  for  “fifteen  shillings,”  “according  to  an  act  of 
the  general  assembly  of  Pennsylvania,  passed  the  thir¬ 
teenth  year  of  the  reign  of  his  majesty  George  the 
Third,  dated  the  first  day  of  October,  1773,  signed 
Thos.  Leech,  William  Griffin,  James  Stephens;”  and 
on  the  back  of  the  note  is  written,  “To  counterfeit,  is 
death.”  I  am  as  much  opposed  to  the  circulation  of 
small  notes,  and  as  much  in  favor  of  a  sound  and  abun- 


20 


dant  specie  basis,  and  specie  circulation,  as  any  gentle¬ 
man  on  this  floor.  Hence  it  is  that  I  am  in  favor  of 
such  measures  as  will  effect  that  desirable  result — mea¬ 
sures  that  have  been  tried;  not  the  chimerical  schemes 
of  fanciful  politicians. 

From  the  genius  and  character  of  our  people,  spread 
as  they  are  from  the  east  many  thousand  miles  west, 
filling  all  the  intermediate  country,  of  every  variety  of 
production,  from  almost  the  polar  region  of  the  north 
to  the  land  of  the  sugar  cane  and  perennial  verdure,  it 
is  impossible  to  carry  on  free  interchange  and  trade, 
without  immense  loss  to  the  people,  without  a  better 
currency  than  we  have  at  this  time.  I  have  no  doubt 
if  a  United  States  bank  were  established,  with  a  capi¬ 
tal  of  thirty  or  forty  millions  of  dollars,  to  issue  no  notes 
of  a  less  denomination  than  ten  dollars,  its  notes  to  be 
received  in  payment  of  government  dues,  and  the  notes 
of  all  banks  that  shall  resume  specie  payments  within 
a  given  period;  that,  after  a  limited  period,  neither  the 
government  nor  the  bank  should  receive  notes  of  any 
bank  that  issued  notes  less  than  five  dollars,  and,  after 
a  farther  period,  of  ten — you  would  gradually  have 
withdrawn  all  the  small  notes;  confidence  would  be  re¬ 
stored,  and  the  people  would  once  more  see  and  han¬ 
dle  specie.  The  operation  would  be  gradual,  and 
create  no  alarm,  or  embarrassment,  or  derangement  in 
business.  Whatever  might  be  the  character  of  the  state 
banks,  they  would  find  it  to  their  interest  to  conform 
to  these  regulations;  for  the  receivability  of  their  notes 
by  the  government  and  the  bank  would  induce  them 
to  call  in  all  their  small  notes;  for  those  banks  could 
not  prosper  whose  notes  would  be  continually  return¬ 
ing  upon  them  as  soon  as  thrown  into  circulation,  as 
the  notes  of  every  bank  would  that  were  not  received 
by  the  government  and  the  bank  and  its  branches. 

At  any  rate,  this  is  the  conclusion  to  which  my  mind, 
after  anxious  research  and  reflection,  has  attained.  By 
such  a  course,  we  would  enable  the  people  gradually  to 
extricate  themselves  from  their  difficulties,  and  the  na¬ 
tion,  now  and  in  future  time,  would  be  benefitted. 

But  we  have  been  told,  by  a  distinguished  member 
from  Virginia,  (Mr.  Robertson),  that  we  are  not  legis¬ 
lating  for  posterity,  but  for  ourselves;  and  that  posterity 
will  legislate  for  itself.  This  is  not  the  first  time  I  have 
heard  of  the  remark  being  made  in  a  legislative  assem¬ 
bly,  though  not  by  Thomas  Jefferson.  But  there  is  au¬ 
thority,  and  very  high  authority,  for  it — the  authority  of 
sir  Hugh  Boyle  Roch.  Barrington,  in  his  Personal 
Sketches,  mentions  that  a  debate  arose  in  the  Irish 
house  of  commons,  on  the  vote  of  a  grant  which  was 
recommended  by  sir  John  Parnell,  chancellor  of  the 
exchequer,  as  one  not  likely  to  be  felt  burdensome  for 
many  years  to  come.  It  was  observed,  in  reply,  that 
the  house  had  no  just  right  to  load  posterity  with  a 
weighty  debt,  for  what  could  in  no  degree  operate  to 
their  advantage.  Sir  Hugh,  eager  to  defend  the  measures 
of  government,  immediately  rose,  and,  in  a  few  words, 
ut  forward  the  most  unanswerable  argument  which 
uman  ingenuity  could  possibly  devise.  “What!  Mr. 
Speaker,”  said  he,  “and  so  we  are  to  beggar  ourselves  for 
fear  of  vexing  posterity!  Now,  I  would  ask  the  honor¬ 
able  gentleman,  and  this  still  more  honorable  house, 
why  we  should  put  ourselves  out  of  the  way  to  do  any 
thing  for  posterity — for  what  has  posterity  done  for  us?" 

Sir  Hugh  perceiving,  upon  taking  his  seat,  that  there 
were  many  smiling,  and  not  being  conscious  that  he 
had  said  any  thing  out  of  the  way,  concluded  that  the 
hoase  had  mistaken  him.  He  therefore  rose  and  beg¬ 
ged  leave  to  explain,  as  he  apprehended  that  gentlemen 
had  entirely  mistaken  his  words.  He  assured  the 
house  “that  by  j)osterity  he  did  not  all  mean  our  ances¬ 
tors,  but  those  who  were  to  come  immediately  after 
them." 

Such  reasoning  may  have  effect  on  some  minds,  but 
it  can  have  none  on  mine.  That  an  American  congress 
shall  not  shape  their  measures  to  benefit  posterity,  is  a 
sentiment  I  can  never  subscribe  to.  There  is  an  in¬ 
stinct  in  all  animated  nature,  to  protect  its  offspring. 
The  most  timid  animal  that  is  not  endowed  with  rea¬ 


son  will  peril  its  existence  to  protect  its  young.  What 
huntsman  has  not  seen  the  skittish  pheasant  change  its 
nature,  at  times,  ,at  his  sudden  approach,  and,  crying 
warning  to  its  affrighted  brood,  nutter  before  his  foot¬ 
steps,  with  its  rich  plumage  expanded,  as  if  to  challenge 
his  deadly  aim!  And  what  generous  huntsman  has 
not  paused,  in  harmless  admiration,  till  the  fond  mother 
could  make  an  adroit  retreat  to  its  secure  brood!  Is  it 
possible  for  the  day  ever  to  arrive  when  the  house  of  re¬ 
presentatives  will  have  become  so  metamorphosed  as  to 
forget  all  instinct  of  nature,  all  duty  of  reason,  as  to  look 
singly  at  the  selfish  interest  of  themselves,  without  con¬ 
sulting  their  duty  to  posterity?  No,  sir,  it  is  not  possible: 
the  laws  of  human  nature  will  never  be  so  changed. 

I  cannot  but  allude  to  a  remark  made  by  the  gentle¬ 
man  from  South  Carolina,  (Mr.  Pickens.)  He  expa¬ 
tiated,  as  the  message  has,  upon  the  banking  system 
of  this  country  and  England,  and  said  that  England 
had  over-traded  and  over-banked. 

I  could  but  picture  in  my  mind  that  the  gentleman 
from  South  Carolina  was  in  the  British  house  of  com¬ 
mons,  addressing  that  body  with  the  same  earnest  and 
impassioned  strain  to  change  its  policy,  to  destroy  its 
bank,  and  to  narrow  down  its  credit  system  to  the  stan¬ 
dard  of  his  judgment.  I  could  fancy  to  my  mind  the 
whole  house  giving  him  profound  attention,  and  ad¬ 
miring  his  eloquence,  if  they  doubted  the  wisdom  of  his 
views;  and  that,  after  he  had  concluded,  some  veteran 
statesman  would  approach  him  in  terms  of  friendly  gra- 
tulation,  and  privately  admonish  him,  before  he  made 
another  speech  on  those  subjects,  that  he  should  lock 
himself  up  in  an  abundant  library,  and  neither  give  nor 
receive  a  visit  until  he  had  thoroughly  lead  the  entire 
history  of  England  in  relation  to  the  causes  of  her  pros¬ 
perity;  that  then  he  hoped  he  would  be  willing  to  make 
a  speech  on  the  other  side,  for  he  would  find  ample 
reasons  for  that  change;  he  would  find  it  was  that  policy 
which  quickened  into  usefulness  the  hidden  coal  and 
embedded  ore;  it  was  that  system  which  taxed  the 
watercourses  to  lessen  the  taxes  of  the  people,  which 
had  before  flowed  on  unobstructed  from  the  mountain 
side  to  the  ocean;  it  was  that  system  which  makes  them 
now,  in  tribute  to  industry,  leap  on  the  water-wheel,  and 
labor  into  motion  millions  of  spindles;  it  is  that  policy 
which  has  built  up  factories,  and  made  all  England  one 
vast  and  prosperous  workshop,  and  created  her  wealth, 
which  all  the  gold  of  all  the  mines  of  South  America^ 
could  not  purchase;  and  has  given  her  power  that  half 
the  world  could  not  subdue,  and  has  made  almost  all  of 
it  tributary  to  her. 

Another  gentleman,  in  his  remarks  yesterday,  [Mr. 
Hunter,  of  Virginia,]  in  making  a  hard-money  speech, 
{and  if  he  will  allow  me  I  will  say  it  was  one  of  the  best 
I  have  listened  to,)  wished  to  demonstrate  the  evils  of 
the  banking  system,  by  referring,  in  illustration  of  his 
position,  to  the  fact  that,  during  the  long  war  in  Europe, 
the  French  government  adopted  the  policy  of  making  a 
run  on  the  Bank  of  England,  whose  paper  was  in  circu¬ 
lation  on  the  continent,  and  consequently  the  bank  had 
to  suspend  specie  payments.  ^  That  honorable  gentle¬ 
man  is  right  in  his  historical  fact,  but  I  must  differ  with 
him  in  his  conclusion,  that  the  British  government  sus¬ 
tained  an  injury  by  that  bank  from  this  circumstance. 

It  is  true,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  the  French  nation 
thought  that  one  of  the  best  ways  of  defeating  the  British 
arms  was  to  make  an  attack  upon  the  means  of  supply 
ofimoney  to  her  armies,  and  did  employ  Jews  to  present 
at  the  counter  of  the  Bank  of  England  its  notes.  But 
did  that  quick-sighted  nation  bend  to  the  policy  of  its 
enemy,  and  countenance  the  discredit  of  its  banks? — 
Did  the  government  of  England,  when  a  run  wras  made 
on  the  banks,  do  as  our  government  has  done — -denounce 
and  aid  to  ruin  the  banks?  No,  sir.  The  ministers  at 
once  brought,  in  a  bill  to  invite — yes,  sir,  to  request — the 
Bank  of  England  to  suspend  specie  payments.  Did  the 
government  of  England  do  as  our  government  has  done 
— refuse  to  take  the  notes  of  the  bank?  No,  sir;  in  that 
very  bill  of  1 797  they  made  the  notes  a  legal  tender,  and 
stamped  the  encouraging  seal  of  the  nation  upon  them, 


21 


by  saying  that  the  government  would  take  them  for  pub¬ 
lic  dues.  It  was  a  consummate  policy,  and  the  sequel 
proved  it;  for,  although  the  law  was  limited  to  six  months, 

I  think  it  was  renewed,  from  time  to  time,  for  some 
twenty  years.  Did  the  notes  of  that  bank  depreciate  as 
the  notes  of  our  banks  have,  that  have  been  dishonored 
by  the  government?  Read  the  history  of  English  cur¬ 
rency,  and  you  will  find  that  it  did  not.  That  policy 
prevented  a  panic  and  sustained  credit,  and  enabled 
England  to  contract  a  debt  of  twenty-five  hundred  mil¬ 
lions,  in  a  war  of  unprecedented  consumption  and  fury. 
By  preserving  credit  at  home,  she  gained  it  abroad;  and 
nothing  aided  her  more  than  the  Bank  of  England.  It 
was  this  policy  which  made  her  victorious  in  that  war; 
it  was  because  industry,  was  her  capital,  and  credit  her 
currency. 

Mr.  Chairman,  I  have  trespassed  much  longer  upon 
the  time  of  the  committee  that  I  had  intended;  but  a 
dread  of  the  consequences  of  this  measure  upon  the  far¬ 
mers  and  mechanics  of  the  district  which  I  represent 
has  induced  me,  together  with  the  attention  which  I 
have  received,  to  claim  so  large  a  portion  of  your  time. 

I  will  answer  one  other  remark,  whilst  up,  from  my 
southern  friends,  and  then  hand  them  over  to  their  consti¬ 
tuents.  My  friend  from  Virginia  [Mr.  Robertson]  said  that 
he  voted  for  this  same  scheme  in  the  twenty-third  con¬ 
gress,  when  general  Gordon  proposed  his  “skeleton”  of 
a  bill;  that,  as  he  went  for  the  “divorce”  system  then,  he 
will  sustain  his  consistency  by  going  for  the  bill  under 
debate;  and  that  most  of  the  members  of  the  opposition 
went  for  it  then.  A  friend  from  the  eastern  shore  of 
Virginia  [Mr.  Wise]  has  informed  the  house  that  he  and 
many  others  voted  for  it  then,  in  courtesy  to  his  colleague 
who  had  moved  it,  so  as  to  bring  the  proposition  before 
the  house;  but  never  dreamed  for  a  moment  of  voting 
for  it  on  its  final  passage 

I  wish  here  to  say  that  I  was  not  in  my  place — from 
indisposition — when  the  vote  was  taken  on  general 
Gordon’s  proposition;  but  had  I  been,  I  would  have 
voted  against  it. 

If  my  honorable  friend  is  willing  to  sue  out  for  a  “di 
vorce,”  in  order  to  marry  a  “skeleton,”  I  should  not  be, 
if  I  were  united  to  the  worst  shrew  in  the  world.  But 
there  is  no  debating  about  taste. 

If  I  wished  to  consult  a  lawyer  of  profound  legal  read- 
and  reflection  upon  an  abstract  question  in  that 


ry  may  afflict ’with  pestiferous  evils  the  body  politic,  on 
whom  you  are  going  to  force  this  unnatural  alliance. 

But  before  I  exhaust  the  patience  of  this  committee 
and  myself,  I  wish  to  refer  to  one  historical  fact,  in  hopes 
hat  the  advocates  of  this  measure  may  find  a  moral  in 
it;  and  in  the  hope  that  they  may  pause  and  profit  by  it 
before  they  consummate  this  hasty  and  ill-judged  mea¬ 


sure. 


mg 


complex  science,  the  first  gentleman  in  this  house  that 
I  would  approach  would  be  the  learned  gentleman  from 
Richmond,  [Mr.  Robertson;]  but  if  I  wished  to  ask  ad 
vice  in  selecting  “a  help  meet,’’  I  think  that  he  would 
be  the  last.  -I  will  candidly  admit  that  my  friend  has 
more  courage  than  myself.  I  do  not  believe  that  I  coulc 
screw  my  courage  up  to  join  in  wedlock’s  embrace 
skeleton  of  dry  bones.  I  would  have  first  to  see  it  fillec 
with  muscles,  flesh  and  blood,  life  and  animation,  fair 
symmetry  and  proportion.  I  must  first  see  the  human 
form  and  face  divine;  and  then,  but  not  till  then, 
would  venture  to — “speak  to  it.” 

What  assurance  can  the  gentleman  have  that  his 
skeleton  might  not  be  made  by  the  secretary,  who  has 
to  fill  up  the  outlines  of  the  form,  a  hideous  caricature — 
a  monster  in  human  form,  afflicted  with 
“All  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to?” 

all  diseases,  all  maladies, 


Of  ghastly  spasm,  or  racking  torture,  qualms 


Of  heart-sick  agony,  all  feverous  kinds 
Convulsions,  epilepsies,  fierce  catarrhs,  w 
Intestine  ills  and  ulcers,  colic  pangs,  • 
Demoniac  phrensy,  moping  melancholy, 

And  moon-struck  madness, 'pining  atrophy, 
Marasmus,  and  wide- wasting  pestilence, 
Dropsies,  and  asthmas,  and  joint-racking  rheums.’’ 


The  skeleton  of  the  bill  before  us — for  it  is  but  a  skele 
ton — although  accompanied  with  “vaultsj^and*‘strong 
boxes,”  they  are  not  boxes  of  ointment— they  are  but 
Pandora’s  boxes,  filled  with  scourges  and  diseases,  with 
out  having  hope  at  the  bottom,  with  which  the  scspreta 


i 


3^1 


At  one  period  of  the  English  history,  corporate  privi- 
eges  were  as  unpopular  as  they  have  been  made  in  this 
country;  they  were  unpopular,  because  abuses  existed 
under  them — real,  not  imaginary;  and  in  none  did 
abuses  exist  to  so  great  an  extent  as  in  the  East  India 
company. 

Mr.  Fox,  who  was  made  premier,  finding  that  popu- 
ar  feeling  existed  strongly  against  the  abuses  practised 
under  that  company’s  incorporated  privileges,  and 
mowing  how  strong  an  influence  he  could  wield,  if  he 
eould  bring  every  interest  connected  with  that  company 
to  be  dependant  upon  the  ministry,  conceived  the  plan, 
not  of  remedying  the  evils,  but  the  bold  scheme  of  an¬ 
nulling  their  charter,  and  appointing  commissioners  with 
absolute  power  to  conduct  the  affairs  of  that  company. 
Ie  brought  forward  a  bill,  and  predicated  it  upon  a  plau¬ 
sible  preamble  of  the  good  of  the  company  and  the  good 
of  the  people,  for  its  better  regulation  and  theirs.  It  was 
not  the  skeleton  of  a  bill,  like  this  on  your  table,  but  full 
and  ample  in  its  parts  and  in  its  details.  That  the  com¬ 
mittee  may  judge  of  its  character,  I  will  request  the  clerk 
to  read  the  preamble  and  the  first  section: 

A  bill  for  vesting  the  affairs  of  the  East  India  company  in 
the  hands  of  certain  commissioners,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
proprietors  and  the  public. 

“Whereas  disorders  of  an  alarming  nature  and  mag¬ 
nitude  have  long  prevailed,  and  do  still  continue  and 
increase,  in  the  management  of  the  territorial  posses¬ 
sions,  the  revenues,  and  the  commerce  of  this  king¬ 
dom  in  the  East  Indies;  by  means  whereof  the  pros¬ 
perity  of  the  natives  has  been  greatly  diminished,  and 
the  valuable  interests  of  this  nation  in  the  said  territo¬ 
rial  possessions,  revenues,  and  commerce,  have  been 
materially  impaired,  and  would  probably  have  fallen 
into  utter  ruin,  if  an  immediate  and  fitting  remedy 
were  not  provided: 

Be  it  therefore  enacted  by  the  king’s  most  excellent 
majesty,  by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  lords 
spiritual  and  temporal,  and  the  commons,  in  this  present 
parliament  assembled,  and  by  the  authority  of  the  same, 
that  the  government  and  management  of  the  temporal 
possessions,  revenue,  and  commerce  of  the  united  com¬ 
pany  of  merchants  of  England,  trading  to  the  East  Indies, 
by  the  directors  and  proprietors  of  the  said  company, 
or  either  of  them;  and  all  and  singular  the  powers  and 
authorities  of  the  said  directors  and  proprietors,  or  of  any 
special  or  general  or  other  court  thereof,  in  the  ordering 
and  managing  the  said  possessions,  revenues,  and  com¬ 
merce;  ana  all  elections  of  the  directors  of  the  said  com¬ 
pany  be,  and  are  hereby  declared  to  be,  discontinued 
for  and  during  the  continuance  of  this  act;  any  char¬ 
ter,  usage,  law,  or  statute,  to  the  contrary  notwithstand 
ing.] 

The  section  which  you  have  heard  is  sufficient  for  my 
purpose. 

“Ex  uno  disce  omnes.” 

Foifthe  public  good  he  was  for  seizing  upon  its  charter¬ 
ed  rights  and  its  revenues,  making  it  dependant  upon  the 
executive  will.  Under  a  tide  of  strong  popular  feeling, 
he  carried  his  bill  through  one  house  with  an  immense 
majority.  His  bosom  glowed  with  triumph,  and  he  fan¬ 
cied  himself  secure  in  his  place. 

The  public  mind  paused,  and  judgment  had  time  to 
counsel  its  feeling.  The  people  began  to  reflect  upon 
the  consequences  of  the  measure.  They  saw  if  that 
company  was  to  be  destroyed,  its  charter  taken  from  it, 
and  all  control  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  it  might  be 
the  case  of  all  other  institutions;  every  chartered  privi¬ 
lege  might  be  taken  the  same  way,  and,  finally,  ail  pow¬ 
er  in  the  nation  might  be  exercised  by  the  executive,  or 
surrendered  to  it  by  a  subservient  parliament.  They 


22 


Boon  drew  a  distinction  between  remedying  and  destroy¬ 
ing;  and  by  the  force  of  a  change  in  the  popular  mind, 
the  bill  was  lost  in  the  other  house,  and  Mr.  Fpx  was  no 
longer  minister. 

What  was  the  great  Fox’s  fate  may  be  the  fate  of 
others.  Let  others,  therefore,  take  warning  by  the  les¬ 
sons  of  history. 

Our  institutions  are  too  firmly  implanted  in  our  gene¬ 
ral  system,  they  have  taken  too  deep  root  in  the  business 
and  well-being  of  society,  property  is  too  much  valued 
and  too  equally  divided  by  the  laws  of  our  states  and  the 
laws  ofindustriousgain,  for  the  people  to  throw  all  things 
into  hotch-potch  and  form  a  common  stock,  or  ever  to 
induce  them  to  sustain  such  measures,  or  measures 
which  lead  to  such  results.  The  golden  bauble  will  not 
now  even  amuse,  much  less  captivate,  sober,  well-think¬ 
ing  men.  You  cannot  even  entice  children  with  it. 

You  may,  in  a  few  congressional  districts,  still  hold 
out  the’ delusion  to  the  people,  but  be  assured  they  will 
be  but  few.  There  is  one  district  north  of  “Mason  and 
Dixon’s  line”  in  which  it  may  succeed — a  district  repre¬ 
sented  on  this  floor  by  a  gentleman  who  defeated  one  of 
the  most  intelligent  and  amiable  gentlemen  I  have  ever 
known,  by  telling  his  constituents  enormous  witch  sto¬ 
ries — as  miraculous  as  were  ever  told  by  the  famous 
“witch- king”  who  figured  in  the  north  of  England  some 
three  centuries  ago.  But  he  finally  was  drowned,  and 
as  I  know  that  there  are  mill-ponds  in  that  gentleman’s 
district,  more  than  six  feet  deep,  I  beg  the  member  to 
keep  a  lookout. 

Sir,  since  the  days  of  Isaac  of  Cyprus,  no  man  has 
been  pleased  to  have  golden  fetters  placed  upon  him. 
Hume  informs  us,  that  after  his  treasures  were  seized 
upon  by  Richard  the  First,  and  the  prince  incarcerated 
and  bound  in  irons,  he  complained  of  the  cruelty  of  his 
conqueror.  Richard  had  the  iron  fetters  taken  off,  and 
golden  ones  placed  on  in  their  stead.  The  Cypriot, 
pleased  with  this  distinction,  expressed  his  gratitude  for 
the  generosity  of  his  conqueror. 


The  people  have  been  restrained  in  their  business  by 
golden  fetters,  which  the  executive  brain  has  forged; 
they  want  them  thrown  off,  so  that  they  may  have  elbow- 
room  to  prosecute  their  industry  as  formerly. 

I  ask,  I  beseech,  this  house  to  pause  in  its  course  be¬ 
fore  it  sanctions  such  a  ruinous  measure. 

I  appeal  to  the  candid  of  all  parties,  whether  conser¬ 
vatives,  administration  men,  or  whigs,  to  let  us  cease  this 
“triangular  fight,”  and  unite  in  defeating  this  measure. 
If  we  nave  differed  as  widely  as  the  poles  on  other  ques¬ 
tions,  let  us  unite  in  defeating  this.  Let  us  say,  in  the 
language  of  another,  “like  men  we  differed,  but  like  men 
we  have  agreed.”  I  had  rather  see  the  pet  bank  plan 
new  vamped  and  tried  again. 

If  you  will  not  reject  this  bill,  or  will  not  lay  it  on  the 
table  never  to  be  called  up  again,  and  are  resolved  to 
pass  it,  let  the  worst  come  to  the  worst  quickly;  and  the 
people  who  will  suffer,  will  soon  show  that  they  have 
power  as  well  as  the  executive  and  the  two  houses  of 
congress;  and  that  the  constitution  has  informed  them 
how  they  can  remedy  their  grievances. 

But  I  hope  it  will  be  rejected,  and  that  the  executive 
will  do  as  the  Icings  of  England  and  of  France  are  forced 
to  do  in  like  cases — change  his  ministers  and  his  mea¬ 
sures.  Or,  if  he  will  not  change  his  advisers,  at  least 
change  his  measures.  Or,  if  he  will  not  change  his 
measures  or  his  advisers,  then,  as  a  republican  presi¬ 
dent,  in  practice,  finding  himself  in  a  minority  in  either 
house,  and  that  he  and  his  ministers  will  not  alter  their 
views  of  the  constitution  and  the  policy  of  the  nation, 
they  will  resign  the  seals  of  office  to  the  people,  and  say 
to  them,  elect  other  agents;  we  come  down  from  our 
high  places,  that  other,  and  abler,  and  better  men  may 
ascend. 

Or  are  the  lines  of  the  philosophic  poet  true? 

“The  age  of  virtuous  politics  is  past! 

And  we  are  deep  in  that  of  cold  pretence ; 

Rulers  are  grown  too  shrewd  to  be  sincere — 

And  we — too  wise  to  trust  them!” 


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